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22 



FREEMAN'S HISTORICAL COURSE FOR SCHOOLS 



OUTLINES 



OF 



HISTORY 



BY 



EDWARD A? FREEMAN, D.C.L. 

LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. 

Edition Adapted for America?i Students. 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1873 



^'!: 






THE LIBRARY 
or CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



Entered according to Act of Congi-ess, in the year 1S73, 

Bv HENRY HOLT, 

In tlic Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Wasliinglon, 



Poole & Maclauchlan, 

printers, 

205-213 Kast iitli St., 

NEW VOKK. 



PREFACE, 

The object of the present series is to put forth clear and 
correct views of history in simple language, and in the 
smallest space and cheapest form in wliich it could be 
done. It is meant in .the first place for schools; but it is 
often found that a book for schools proves useful for other 
readers as well, and it is hoped that this may be the case 
with the little books the first instalment of which is now 
given to the world. The present volume is meant to 
be introductory to the whole course. It is intended to 
give, as its name implies, a general sketch of the history 
of the civinzed world, that is, of Europe and of the lands 
which have drawn their civilization from Europe. Its 
object is to trace out the general relations of different 
periods and different countries to one another, without 
going minutely into the affairs of any particular country, 
least of all into those of England. This is an object of 
the first importance, for, without clear notions of general 
history, the history of particular countries can never be 
rightly understood. This General Sketch will be followed 



n PREFACE. 



by a series of special histories of particular countries', 
which will take for granted the main principles laid 
down in the General Sketch. In this series it is hoped 
in time to take in short histories of all the chief 
countries of Europe and America, giving the results of 
J:he latest historical researches in as simple a form as 
may be. Those of England and Scotland will shortly 
follow the present introductory volume, and other 
authors are at work on other parts of the plan. The 
several members of the series will all be so far under 
the supervision of the Editor as to secure general ac- 
curacy of statement, and a general harmony of plan 
and sentiment. But each book will be the original work 
of its own author, and each author will be responsible 
for his own treatment of the smaller details. For his 
own share of the work the Editor has, besides the 
General Sketch, taken the histories of Rome and Switzer- 
land. The others will be put into the hands of various 
writers, on whose knowledge and skill he believes that 
he can rely. 



SOMERLEAZE, WeLLS, 

August 23, 1872. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

fAGB 

ORKJIN OF THE NATIONS ... I 

CHAPTER II. 

GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES ,19 

CHAPTER III. 

THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH 48 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE HEATHEN EMPIRE 80 

CHAPTER V. 
THE EARLY CHRISTIAN EMPIRE c . 94 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST ..... c . HO 



viii CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE 

THE FRANKISH EMPIRE 1 23 



CHAPTER VIII. 
THE SAXON EMPERORS 137 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE FRANCONIAN EMPERORS . . . .' I46 

CHAPTER X. 
GENERAL VIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGES 1 59 

CHAPTER XI. 
THE SWABIAN EMPERORS 1 75 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE 1 99 

CHAPTER XIII. 
THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN . . ..•••.. 234 



CONTENTS. « 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PAGE 
N 

THE GREATNESS OF FRANCE 281 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE RISE OF RUSSIA 302 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 325 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY 347 



OUTLINES 



OF 



HISTORY 

CHAPTER I. 

ORIGIN OF THE NATIONS. 

Different nations of the world (i) — diffei'ence between East and 
West (2) — the Aryan nations (3) — connexion among their Ian- 
guages {3) — amount of progress made by thejn before their disper- 
sidn (4) — their advances in religion and government {^)—the 
Semitic nations (6) — their religious influence on the world {6) — 
the Turanian and other Non-Aryan nations (7) — their extent in 
Asia (7) — traces of them in Europe (7) — movements of the Aryans 
in Europe and Asia (8) — geographical shape of Europe (9) — the 
three great peninsulas (10) — advance of the successive Aryan 
swarms (ll) — the Greeks and Italians (ll, 12) — the Celts (12) — • 
the Teutons (13) — the Slaves and Lithuanians (14) — later Tura- 
nian settlements in Europe ; Hungarians and Turks (14) — dif 
ferent degrees of importaiue among the Aryans of Etirope (15) — 
Rome the central point of all European History {15) — Division 
of periods before and after the Roman Dominion (16). 

I. Different Aspects of History. — The history of the 
various nations, of mankind may be looked at in many 
and very different ways ; and the importance of different 
parts ot history varies widely according to the way in 

B 



2 ORIGIN OF THE NATIONS. [chap. 

which they are looked at. One who wishes to trace out the 
history of religion, or of language, or of manners and 
customs, will often find as much that is useful for his 
purpose among savage nations, who have played no im- 
portant part in the world, as among the most famous and 
civilized people. But researches of this sort cannot be put 
together into a continuous tale ; they are not history strictly 
so called. By history in the highest sense we understand 
the history of those nations which have really influenced one 
another, so that their whole story, from the beginning to our 
own time, forms one tale, of which, if we wholly leave out 
any part, we cannot rightly undei stand what follows it. 
Such a history as this is found only in the history of the 
chief nations of Europe, and of those nations of Asia and 
Africa which have had most to do with them. 

2. Difference between East and West.— But between the 

history of the East, as we may vaguely call it, that is chiefly 

the history of Asia and Africa, and the history of our own 

Western world in Europe and America, the gap is in many 

ways wide. To take one point of difference among many, 

the history of the East does not give the same poKtical 

teaching as that of the West. It is in a much greater degree 

the history of a mere succession of empires and dynasties, 

and in a much less degree the history of the people. We 

shall therefore do right if we ' deal with the history of the 

West as our main subject, and treat of the history of the 

East only so far as it bears on the history of the West. For 

history in the highest sense, for the history of man in his 

highest poKtical character, for the highest developements of 

art, literature, and political freedom, we must look to that 

family of mankind to which we ourselves belong, and to that 

division of the world in which we ourselves dwell. The 

branch of history which is history in the highest and truest 

sense is the history of the Aryan nations of Europe, and of 



Sj EAST AND WEST. 3 

those who have in later times gone forth from among them 
to carry the arts and languages of Europe into other con- 
tinents. The history of these nations forms Western or 
European history, the history of Europe and of Europeaji 
Colo7iies. But here too we shall find some periods and 
countries of higher interest and importance than others. 
Still the whole, from the earliest times to which we can trace 
it back, forms one connected story. No part is altogether 
void of interest in itself, none is altogether cut off from con- 
nexion with the general thread of continuous history. And 
with regard to particular times and places, this part of history 
reaches the highest degree of interest and importance that 
history can reach. It takes in the history of those times and 
places which most directly concern ourselves, and it takes in 
the history of those times and places which have had the 
deepest and most lasting influence on the world in general. 
It is then to the history of Europe, and of the Aryan nations 
in Europe and in European colonies elsewhere, that the 
present sketch, and the more detailed histories which are 
to follow it, will mainly be devoted. The history of other 
parts of the world, and of other families of the human race, 
will be dealt with only so far as those other nations and 
countries are brought into connexion with the long unbroken 
tale of European history. 

3. The Aryan Nations.— Some readers may perhaps by 
this time have asked what is to be understood by a word 
which has been already used more than once, namely, the 
Aryan nations. That is the name which is now generally 
received to express that division of the human race to which 
we ourselves belong, and which, takes in nearly all the 
present nations of Europe and several of the chief nations 
of Asia. The evidence of language shows that there 
was a time, a time of course long before the beginning of 
recorded history, when the forefathers of all these nations* 

B 2 



4 ORIGIN OF THE NATIONS. [chap. 

were one people, speaking one language. Sanscrit^ the 
ancient language of India, Persian^ Greek^ Latin, English, 
and other tongues, many of which we shall soon have 
occasion to speak of, are really only dialects of one common 
speech. They show their common origin alike by their 
grammatical forms, such as the endings of nouns and verbs 
and the like, and by what is more easily understood by people 
in general, by their still having many of the commonest and 
most necessary words, those words without which no language 
can get on, essentially the same. Now many of the nations 
which now speak these languages have for ages been so 
far parted from one another, that it is quite impossible that 
they can have borrowed these words, and still less these 
grammatical forms, from one another. We can thus see that 
all these nations are really kinsfolk, that they once were only 
one nation, the different branches of which parted off from 
one another at a time long before written history begins. 

4. Early State of the Aryan Nations. — But what we 
know of the languages of the various Aryan nations tells us 
something more than this. By the nature of the words 
which are common to all or most of the kindred tongues we 
can see what steps the forefathers of these various nations 
had already taken in the way of social life and regular govern- 
ment in the days before they parted asunder. And we can 
see that those steps were no small steps. Before there were 
such nations as Hindoos and Greeks and Germans, while the 
common forefathers of all were still only one people, they had 
risen very far indeed above the state of mere savages. They 
had already learned to build houses, to plough the ground, 
and to grind their corn in a mill. This is shown by the 
words for ploughing, building, and grinding being still nearly 
the same in all the kindred languages. It is easy for any- 
one to see that our word mill is the same as the Latin molay 
and that our old word to ear — that is, to J>lough-^th.Q ground, 



I.] THE EARLY ARYANS. 5 

which is sometimes used in the Old Testament, is the same 
as the Latin arare, which has the same meaning. But no 
one ought to fancy that the EngUsh word is derived from the 
Latin, or that we learned the use of the thing from any 
people who spoke Latin, because the same words are found 
also in many other of the kindred languages, even those which 
are spoken in countries which are furthest removed from 
one another. We see then that words of this kind — and I 
have only chosen two out of many — are really fragments 
remaining from the old common language which was spoken 
by our common forefathers before they branched off and 
became different nations. It is therefore quite plain that 
the things themselves, the names of which have thus been 
kept in so many different languages for thousands of years, 
were already known to the Aryan people before they parted 
into different nations. And I need not say that people who 
build houses, plough the ground, and grind their corn, 
though they may still have very much to learn, are in a 
much higher state than the people in some parts of the 
world are in even now. 

5. Early Aryan Religion and Government. — But lan- 
guage again tells us something more of the early Aryan 
people than the progress which they had made in the 
merely mechanical arts. We find that the names for various 
family relations, for the different degrees of kindred and 
affinity, father^ mother, brother, sister, and the like, are the 
same in all or most of the kindred tongues. We see then 
that, before the separation, the family life, the groundwork 
of all society and government, was already well understood 
and fully established. And we see too that regular govern- 
ment itself had already begun ; for words meaning king or 
ruler are the same in languages so far distant from one another 
as Sanscrit, Latin, and English. The Latin words rex, regere, 
regtmnij are the same as the Old-English rica, rixian, 7'ice^ 



6 ORIGIN OF THE NA TIONS. [CHAP. 

words which have dropped out of the language, but which 
still remain in the ending of such words as bishoprick, 
where the last syllable means government or possession. 
And we can also see that the Aryans before their dispersion 
had already something of a religion. For there is a common 
stock of words and tales common to most of the Aryan 
nations, many of which they cannot have borrowed from one 
another, and which point to an early reverence for the great 
powers of the natural world. Thus the same name for the 
sky, or for the great God of the sky, appears in very different 
languages, as Dymis in Sanscrit, Zetis in Greek, and the Old- 
English God Thu, from whom we still call the third day of 
the week Tiwesdceg or Tuesday. And there are a number of 
stories about various Gods and heroes found among different 
Aryan nations, all of which seem to come from one common 
source. And we may go on and see that the first glimpses 
which we can get of the forms of government in the early days 
of the kindred nations show them to have been wonderfully 
like one another. Alike among the old Greeks, the old 
Italians, and the old Germans, there was 2. King or chief with 
limited power, there was a smaller Council of nobles or of old 
men, and a general Assembly of the whole people. Such 
was the old constitution of England, out of which its 
present constitution has grown step by step. But there is 
no reason to think that this was at all peculiar to England, 
or even peculiar to those nations who are most nearly akin 
to the English. Thei'e is every reason to believe that this 
form of government, in which every m.an had a place, 
though some had a greater place than others, was really 
one of the possessions which we have in common with 
the whole Aryan family. We see then that our common 
Aryan forefathers, in the times when they were still one 
people, times so long ago that we cannot hope to give 
them any certain date, had already made advances in civiliza- 



L] THE SEMITIC NATIONS. 7 

tion which placed them far above mere savages. They 
already had the family life ; they already had the beginnings 
of religion and government ; and they already knew most 
of those simple arts which are most needed for the comfort 
of human life. 

6. The Semitic Nations.— Such then were the original 
Aryans — that one among the great families of mankind to 
which we ourselves belong, and that which has played the 
greatest part in the history of the world. Still the Aryan 
nations are only a small part among the nations of the earth. 
It is not needful for our purpose to speak at any length ot 
the nations which are not Aryan ; but a few words must be 
given to the two great families which have always pretty 
well divided Europe and Asia with the Aryans, and with 
whom the history of the Aryans is constantly coming in 
contact. Next in importance to the Aryans w^e must place 
those which are called the Semitic nations, among whom 
those with whom we have most concern are the Hebrews, 
the PhcB?iicians, and the Arabs. And in one point we must 
set them even above the Aryans ; for the three religions 
which have taught men that there is but one God — the 
Jewish, the Christian, and the Mahometan — have all come 
from among them. But those among the Semitic nations to 
whom this great truth was not known seem often to have 
fallen into lower forms of idolatry than the Ar^'^aiis. Now the 
Semitic nations have, so to speak, kept much closer together 
than the Aryans have. They have always occupied a much 
smaller portion of the world than the Aryans, and they 
have kept much more in the same part of the world. Their 
chief seats have aiways been in south-western Asia ; and 
though they have spread themselves thence into distant 
parts of the world, in Asia, Africa, and even Europe, yet 
this has mainly been by settlements in comparatively late 
times, about whose history we know something. Their 



8 ORIGIN OF THE NATIONS. [chai. 

languages also have parted off much less from one another 
than the Aryan languages have ; the Semitic nations have 
thus always kept up more of the character of one family than 
the Aryans. 

7. The Turanian Nations. — The rest of Asia, which is not 
occupied either by Aryan or by Semitic people, is occupied 
by various nations whose tongues differ far more widely 
from one another than the Aryan tongues do. Still there 
is reason to believe that many of them at least were 
originally one people, and at all events it is convenient for 
our purposes to class together all those nations of Europe 
and Asia which are neither Aryan nor Semitic. ' The people 
of the greater part of Asia are commonly known as the 
Turaniafi nations. In the old Persian stories Tiiran, the 
land of darkness, is opposed to /r^;z or Aria, the land of 
light ; and it is from this h'an^ the old name of Persia, that 
it has been thought convenient to give the whole family the 
name of A ryans. And besides that large part of Asia which 
is still occupied by the Turanians, it is plain that in earlier 
times they occupied a large part of Europe also. But the 
Aryans have driven them out of nearly all Europe, except a 
few remnants in out-of-the-way corners, such as the Fi?is and 
Laps in the north. The Basques also on the borders of 
Spain and Gaul, whether akin to the Turanians or not, are 
at least neither Aryan nor Semitic, so that for our purposes 
they may all go together. Except these few remnants of the 
old races, all Europe has been Aryan since the beginning 
of written history, except when Semitic or Turanian invaders 
have come in later times. But in Asia the nations which 
are neither Aryan nor Semitic, the Chinese^ Mongols^ Turks, 
and others, still far outnumber the Aryan and Semitic nations 
put together. 

8. The Aryan Dispersion. — We have seen that there was 
a time, long before the beginnmg of recorded history, when 



I.] THE ARYAN DISPERSION. g 

the forefathers of the various Aryans dwelled together as one 
people, speaking one language. And the advances which 
they had made towards civilization show that they must 
have dwelled together for a long time, but a time whose 
length we cannot undertake to measure. Nor can we 
undertake to fix a date for the time of the great separation, 
when the families which had hitherto dwelled together 
parted off in different directions and became different 
nations speaking tongues which are easily seen to be 
near akin to each other, but which gradually parted from one 
another so that different nations could no longer understand 
each other's speech. All that we can say is that these are 
facts which happened long before the beginnings of written 
history, but which are none the less certain because we learn 
them from another kind of proof. The various wandering 
bands must have parted off at long intervals, one by one, 
and it often happened that a band split off into two or more 
bands in the course of its wanderings. And in most cases 
they did not enter upon uninhabited lands, but upon lands 
in which men of other races were already dwelling, among 
whom they appeared as conquerors, and whom, for the most 
part, they drove out of the best parts of the land into out- 
of-the-way corners. First of all, there are the two great 
divisions of the Eastern and the Weste?"n, the Asiatic and 
the European^ Aryans, divisions which became altogether 
cut off from one another in geographical position and in 
habits and feelings. From the old mother-land one great 
troop pressed to the south-east and became the forefathers 
of the Persians and Hindoos, driving the older inhabi- 
tants of India down to the south, into the land which is 
properly distinguished from Hindostan by the name of the 
Deccan. The other great troop pressed westward, and, 
sending off one swarm after another, formed the various 
Aryan nations of Europe. The order in which they 



lo ORIGIN OF THE NA IIONS. [chap. 



came can be known only by their geographical posi- 
tion. The first waves of the migration must be those 
whom we find furthest to the West and furthest to the 
South. But, in order fully to take in the force of the 
evidence furnished by the geographical position of the 
various Aryan nations in Europe, it is needful to say a 
few words as to the geographical aspect of the continent 
of Europe itself. 

9. Geographical Shape of Europe, — A glance at the map 
will show that, of the three continents which form the Old 
World, Eicrope, Asia, and Africa, the first two are far more 
closely connected with one another than either of them is 
with the third. Africa is a vast peninsula — in our own day 
indeed it may be said to have become an island — united to 
the other two by a very narrow isthmus. But Europe and 
Asia form one continuous mass, and in some parts the 
boundary between the two is purely artificial. Some maps, 
for instance, make the Don the boundary ; others make it 
the Volga. The most northern and the most central parts of 
Europe and Asia form continuous geographical wholes ; it is 
only the southern parts of the two continents which are quite 
cut off from one another. And it is in these southern parts 
of each that the earliest recorded history, at all events the 
earliest recorded history of the Aryan nations, begins. Cen- 
tral Europe and central Asia form one great solid mass of 
nearly unbroken territory. The southern parts of each con- 
tinent, the lands below these central masses, consist of a 
series of peninsulas, running, in the case of Europe, into the 
great inland sea called the Mediterranean — the sea which 
brings all three continents into connexion — in the case of 
Asia into the Ocean itself. Europe thus consists of a great 
central plain, cut off by a nearly unbroken mountain range 
from a system of islands and peninsulas to the south, which 
is again balanced to the north by a sort of secondary system 



I.] . GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE, II 

of islands and peninsulas, the Baltic being a sort of northern 
Mediterranean. We might almost say the same of Asia, as 
the mouths of the great rivers which run to the north form 
several peninsulas and inland seas. But then this part of the 
world has always been, so to speak, frozen up, and it never 
has played, nor can play, any part in history. 

10. The three great European Peninsulas. — We thus 
see that the southern part of Europe consists mainly of three 
great peninsulas, those of Spain, Italy, and what we may 
roughly call Greece. Of these, the two eastern peninsulas 
are purely Mediterranean, while Spain, from its position at one 
end of the Old World, could not help having one side to the 
Ocean. So Northern Europe may be said to consist of the 
two Scandinaviaii peninsulas and of our own British islands, 
which in a certain way balance Spain, and which, in a 
general glance, seem peninsular rather than insular. Now 
of the three southern peninsulas, it will be seen at once that 
the eastern one has a character of its own. Though the 
nearest to Asia, it is in its geographical character the most 
thoroughly European. As Europe is, more than either of 
the other continents, a land of islands and peninsulas, so 
Greece and the countries near to it are, more than any other 
part of Europe, a land of islands and peninsulas. It is 
therefore hardly more than we should expect when we fmd 
that the recorded history of Europe begins in this eastern 
peninsula, that is to say, in Greece ; that for several ages the 
history of Europe is httle more than a history of this and 
the neighbouring peninsula, that is to say, of Greece and 
Italy ; that the third peninsula, that of Spain, first appears 
in European history as a kind of appendage to the other two ; 
and that the historical importance of central and northern 
Europe belongs to a later date still. 

11. The Aryan Settlement of Europe. The Greeks and 
Italians.— This does not however necessarily prove that the 



12 ORIGIN- OF THE NA TIONS. . [chap. 



two peninsulas of Greece and Italy were positively the first 
parts of Europe which received Aryan inhabitants. There 
can be no doubt, from the close likeness of the Greek and 
Latin languages, that the Aryan inhabitants of those two 
peninsulas branched off from the original stock as one 
swarm, and parted most probably at the head of the great 
Hadriatic Gulf. They thus became two nations, or rather two 
groups of many nations ; but the fact that the Greek and 
Latin languages agree so closely together shows that there 
A^as a time when the forefathers of the Greeks and the fore- 
fathers of the Italians had already parted off from the fore- 
fathers of the Hindoos and Germans, but had not yet parted 
off from one another. Now the time when they occupied 
these two peninsular must have been long before the be- 
ginnings of recorded history, so that it is impossible to give 
any details of the way in which the land was conquered. 
Still it is not in the least likely that they found the land un- 
inhabited. They may have found earlier inhabitants who were 
not Aryans, as the Aryans certainly did in many other parts 
of Europe, or they may even have found Aryan settlers earlier 
than themselves. The exact relations between the Greeks 
and the other ancient nations of south-eastern Europe are in 
some respects very hard to make out, and the little that can 
be said about it in such a sketch as this had better be said 
when we come to speak of Greece somewhat more par- 
ticularly. But of the people whom the Italians found in the 
middle peninsula of the three, we must say something more. 
12, The Italians and Celts. — In the case of the Italians, 
we know a little more of the nations, both Aryan and other- 
wise, whom they seem to have found in their peninsula. In 
some parts they most likely found a non- Aryan people, and it 
can hardly be doubted that, if they entered their peninsula by 
land from the head of the Hadriatic Gulf, they already found 
a Celtic people in the northern part of it. The Celts were 



f.] THE CELTS. 13 

the first wave of the Aryan migration in central Europe, and 
we therefore find them the furthest to the west of any Aryan 
people. In historical times we find them in Gaul, in the 
British Islands, in parts of Spain and Italy, and in the bordei 
lands of Italy and Germaiiy south of the Danube. Now it 
is not likely that they found any part of these lands quite 
uninhabited ; it is far more likely that they found an earlier 
people dwelling in th^m, whom they slew or drove out. In 
Spain indeed and in Southern Gaul we know that they did 
so, because, as has been already said, there is a small district 
on each side of the Pyrenees, where a non-Aryan tongue is 
still spoken by the Basqties. These, we cannot doubt, are 
remnants of the earlier people who inhabited Spain and 
Southern Gaul, and most likely other parts of Western 
Europe, before either the Celts or Italians came. And we 
can hardly doubt that the Italians found people of this 
race, perhaps in their peninsula itself, and at any rate on its 
borders. But the Italians never settled far west of their own 
peninsula ; the first Aryans who pushed their way intc 
Western Europe as far as the Ocean were the Celts. But we 
must now mark that, as the Aryans pressed upon and slew 01 
drove out the Turanians and other earlier settlers whom they 
found in the lands into which they came, so presently other 
Aryan swarms came pressing upon the first Aryans, and 
dispossessed or drove them out in like manner. Thus, in 
Western Europe, while the earlier inhabitants have been 
driven up by the Celts into very small corners indeed, the 
Celts themselves were in the end also driven up into corners, 
though not into quite such small corners. Thus, out of all 
the lands where the Celts once dwelled, their languages, 
of which the British or Welsh, the Breton, and the 
Irish tongues still survive, are now spoken only in certain 
parts of Gaul, Britain, and Ireland. This change is partly 
because, as we shall see as we go on, a large part of the 



14 ORIGIN OF THE NA TIONS. [chap. 

Celts were conquered by the Romans, and learned to speak 
their language. But it is also partly because another wave 
of Aryan settlement presently came into Western Europe, 
pressed upon the Celts from the east, and drove them out ot 
a great part of the land, just as they had driven the earlier 
people. And so in later times, other branches of the Aryan 
family have pressed backwards and forwards, and have 
conquered and displaced other Aryan nations, just as much 
as those that were not Aryan. But there can be no doubt 
that the Celts, whom we find the furthest to the west of any 
Aryan people, were the first Aryans who made their way into 
the western lands of Spain, Gaul, and Britain. 

13. The Teutons or Dutch. — The second Aryan swarm in 
Western Europe, that which came after the Celts, is the one 
with whose history we are more concerned than with that ot 
any other ; for it is the branch of the Aryan family to wliich we 
ourselves belong. These are the Teutons, the forefathers of the 
Germans and the English, and of the Danes, Swedes, and Nor- 
wegians in Northern Europe. They do not appear in history 
till a much later time than the Celts, and then we find them 
lying immediately to the east of the Celts, chiefly in the land 
which is now called Gerjnany. From this they spread them- 
selves into many of the countries of Europe ; but in most 
cases they got lost among the earlier inhabitants, and learned 
to speak their language. The chief parts of Europe where 
Teutonic languages are now spoken are Germany, England, 
and Scandinavia. In the last-named country we cannot 
doubt that the present Teutonic inhabitants were the first 
Aryan settlers ; for it is plain that they found a Turanian 
jieople there, some of whom still remain, by the name of 
Laps and Fitis, in the extreme north of Sweden and Norway 
and on the eastern coast of the Baltic. But in most places 
the Teutons, as the second wave, came into lands where 
other Aryan settlers had been before them. Sometimes they 



1.] THE TEUTONS AND SLAVES. 



15 



may have simply come in the wake of the Celts as they were 
pressing westward ; but sometimes they found the Celts in 
the land and drove them out, as was especially the case in 
the British Isles. Of the first coming of the Teutons into 
Europe we can say nothing from written history, any more 
than of the first coming of the Celts. But many of their 
chief settlements, and among them their settlement in 
Britain, happened so late that we know a good deal about 
them. The true name of the Teutons is Theodisc or Diitch, 
from Theod, people^ as one might say " the people,'' as op- 
posed to foreigners. The Germans still call themselves 
Deutschen in their own language, and not so long ago the 
word DtUch was still used in English in a sense at least as 
wide as this, and did not mean only the one people to whom 
alone we now commonly give the name. 

14. The Slaves and Lithuanians. — The third wave ot 
Aryan settlement in the central parts of Europe consisted of 
the Slaves and Lzthuanmns, whom for our purpose we may 
put together. It must not be thought that the word Slav^, 
as the name of a people, comes from slave in its common 
sense of bond^nan. It is just the other way, for the word 
slave got the sense of boiidinan because of the great number 
of bondmen of Slavonic birth who were at one time spread 
over Europe. This third swarm forms the Aryan inhabitants 
of the central part of Eastern Europe, of Old Prussia and 
Lithtiania, oi Russia, Poland, Bohemia, of parts of Him o-ary, 
and of a large part of the countries which are subje1:t to 
the Tur^s. They thus lie to the east of the Teutons, who in 
after-times turned about and greatly enlarged their borders at 
their cost. And it is also among these Slavonic people that 
we find the only instances in Europe of a Turanian people 
turning about and establishing themselves at the cost of Aryan 
nations. One of these is the Hungarians or Magyars, a 
people aUied to the Fins who piessed in as conquerors, and 



I6 ORIGIN OF THE NA TIONS. [chap. 

founded a kingdom which still lasts, and where the old 
Turanian tongue is still spoken. The other case is that ol 
the Ottoman T^irks^ who still bear rule over many of the 
Greeks, Slaves, and other Aryan and Christian people in 
south-eastern Europe. And as we go on, we shall find other 
cases in eastern Europe of Turanian nations invading or 
ruling over Aryans ; but it is only the Hungarians and the 
Ottoman Turks who founded kingdoms which have lasted to 
our own time. The last Aryan people to be mentioned in 
this survey of Europe are the Lithuanians, whose language 
and history is closely connected with that of the Slaves. 
They are the smallest, as the Slaves are fhe largest, of the 
great divisions of the Aryan settlers in Europe. But they 
are of great importance, because their language is in some 
sort the very oldest in Europe, that is, it is the one which 
has in many things undergone the least change from the 
common Ar)'an tongue from which all set out. But it is only 
in a very small part of Europe, on the south-east corner of 
the Baltic, that the Lithuanian tongue is still spoken. 
w 15. Rome the Centre of European History. — Such is a 
/ very short sketch of the settlement of the chief Aryan 
nations in Europe. The history of these nations forms 
European history. But, even among these Aryan nations in 
Europe, some have played a much more important part than 
others. Thus the Lithuanians and Slaves have always 
lagged behind the other nations. Nor have the Celts 
played any great part in history, except when they have 
come under either Roman or Teutonic influences. The 
nations which have stood out the foremost among all 
have been the Greeks, the Romans, and the Teutons. And 
among these it is the Romans who form the centre of the 
whole. story. Rome alone founded an universal Empire in 
which all earlier history loses itself, and out of which all 
later history grew. That Empire, at the time of its 



I.] ROME THE COMMON CENTRE. 17 

greatest extent, took in the whole of what was then the civil- 
ized world, that is to say, the countries round about the 
Mediterranean Sea, alike in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The 
Romar? Empire was formed by gradually bringing under its 
dominion all the countries within those bounds which had 
already begun to have any history, those which we may call 
the states of the Old World. And it was out of the breaking 
up of the great dominion of Rome that what we may call 
the states of the New World, the kingdoms and nations of 
modern Europe, gradually took their rise. Thus through the 
whole of our sketch we must be ever thinking of Rome, ever 
looking to Rome, sometimes looking forward to it, sometimes 
looking back to it, but always having Rome in our mind as 
the centre of the whole story. In the former part of our 
sketch we have to deal with kingdoms and nations which are 
one day to come under the power of Rome. In the latter 
part of our sketch we have to deal with kingdoms and 
nations, many of which actually formed part of the Roman 
dominion, and all of which have been brought, more or less 
fully, under Roman influences. In this way Rome will never 
pass out of our sight. 

16. Division of Periods. — We may thus say that the 
history of the civihzed part of the world falls into three 
parts. There is the history of the states which were in 
being before the Roman dominion began, and out of whose 
union the Roman dominion was formed. Then there is 
the history of the Roman dominion itself. Lastly, there 
is the history of the states which arose out of the break- 
ing up of the Roman dominion. But we shall have much 
more to say about the states which grew up out of the 
breaking up of the Roman dominion than about the 
states which were brought together to form it. Xhere 
are two reasons for this. History which we can fully 
trust, history which was written down at or soon after the 

C 



l8 ORIGIN OF THE NATIONS. [chap. i. 

time v/hen things happened, begins only a few hundred years 
before the Roman power came to its full growth. But a 
far longer time has passed since the days when the Roman 
dominion began to break in pieces. Thus the portion 
of trustworthy history which comes after the days of the 
Roman dominion is much longer than the portion which 
comes before it. And in these later times we have to deal 
with many great and famous states, among which are those 
which have grown into the chief powers of Europe in our 
own day. But in the earlier time, the time before the Roman 
dominion, we know very little of most of the European 
nations : the history of most of them may be said to begin 
at the time when the Romans began to conquer them. Of 
most of them therefore the little that we have to say will be 
best said when we come to speak of the Roman conquests. 
But there is one European country which has a history of its 
own before its conquest by the Romans, and a history longer 
and nobler than that of the Romans themselves. This 
country is Greece. Of Greece then, and of Greece alone, we 
must give a separate sketch in the next chapter, before we 
begin to trace the steps by which Rome won her universal 
dominion. 



CHAPTER II. 

GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES. 

Connexion behveen the Greeks and Italians (i) — their relation to other 
neighboicj'ing nations (l) — their early advances over their kindrea 
(l) — meaning of the name Hellas (2) — geog7'aphical character oj 
the country (2) — number of islands and peninsulas (2) — consequent 
number of small states (2) — early political superiority of Greece (3) 
— relations between the Greeks and Phoenicians (4) — extent of the 
Phoenician Colonies {4) — extent of the Greek Colonies (5) — dis- 
tinction between Greeks and Barbarians (6) — relations of the Greeks 
to the kindred_ nations (6) — relations among the cities of Greece (7) 
— relations of the colonies to the mother cities (7) — early consti- 
tutions of the Greek cities ; likeness of those to other Aryan 
nations (8) — KingsJdp, Aristocracy, Democracy (8) — Tyranny (9) 
— Greek religion and mythology (10) — the Homeric poetns (ll) — ■ 
the Dorian migration (ll) — the Messenian wars (ll) — reforms 
of Soldn at Athens (ll) — grozuth of the Persians (12) — their con- 
quests of Lydia and the Greek cities of Asia (12) — frst Persian 
invasion of Greece; Battle of Marathon (13) — second Persian 
invasion of Greece ; Battles of Salamis, Plataia, and Mykal^ {l^) 
— greatness of Athens (14) — beginning of the Peloponnesian Waf 
(15) — Athenian expedition to Sicily (15) — Athens overcome by 
Sparta (15) — the dominion of Sparta {16)— the Peace of AntaU 
kidas (16) — rise of Thebes (17) — rise of Macedonia under Philip ; 
his supremacy in Greece ( 1 8) — conquests of Alexander the Great (19) 
— effects of his conquests ; spT-ead of Greek civilization in Asia (20) 
— the Successors of Alexander' in Asia and Egypt (21) — the later 
Kings of Macedonia and Epeiros (22) — character of the later 
history of Greece (23) — prevalence of Federal Governments in later 

02 



«0 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

Greece ; Leagues of Achaia^ ^tolia^ and elsewhere (24) — greatness 
of Sparta under Kleomenh (25) — interference of Rome in Greek 
affairs (25) — Summary (26). 

I. The Greek People. — Whether the Greeks were the first 

Aryan people to settle in Europe or in Eastern Europe we 

cannot tell for certain. But we do know for certain that they 

were the first Aryan nation whose deeds were recorded in 

written history ; and there never was any nation whose 

deeds were more worthy to be recorded. For no nation ever 

did such great things, none ever made such great advances in 

every way, so wholly by its own power and with so little help 

from any other people. Yet we must not look on the Greeks 

as a nation quite apart by themselves. We have already 

seen that the Greek people were part of a great Aryan 

settlement which occupied both the two eastern peninsulas, 

and that the forefathers of the Greeks and the forefathers 

of the Italians must have kept together for a good while 

after they had parted company from the other branches 

of the Aryan family. There is some reason to think that 

some of the other nations bordering nea-r upon Greece, 

both in the eastern peninsula and in the western coast of 

Asia, in Illyria, Thrace^ Phrygla, and Lydia, were not only 

Aryan, but were actually part of the same swarm as the 

Greeks and Itahans However this may be, it seems quite 

certain that most of the nations lying near Greece, as in 

Epeiros and Macedonia^ which lie to the north, in Sicily 

^n^ Southern Italy, and in some parts of the opposite coasts 

of Asia, were very closely akin to the Greeks, and spoke 

languages which came much nearer to Greek even than the 

languages of the rest of Italy. The people of all these 

countries seem to have had a power beyond all other people 

of adopting the Greek language and manners, and, so to 

speak, of making themselves Greeks. The Greeks seem, in 

fact, to have been one among several kindred nations which 



11.] GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 21 

shot in advance of its kinsfolk, and which was therefore able 
in the end to become a sort of teacher to the others. And 
one thing which helped the Greeks in thus putting themselves 
in advance of all their kinsfolk and neighbours was the nature 
of the land in which they settled. 

2. Geographical Character of Greece. — Anyone who turns 
to the map will see that the country which we call Greece, 
but which its own people have always called Hellas , is 
the southern part of the great eastern peninsula of Europe. 
But we must remember that, in the way of speaking of the 
Greeks themselves, the name Hellas did not mean merely 
the country which we now call Greece, but any country where 
Hellenes or Greeks lived. Thus there might be patches, so 
to speak, of Hellas anyv/here ; and there were such patches 
of Hellas round a great part of the Mediterranean Sea 
wherever Greek settlers had planted colonies. But the first 
and truest Hellas, the mother-land of all Hellenes, was the 
land which we call Greece, with the islands round about it. 
There alone the whole land was Greek, and none but Hellenes 
lived in it. It is, above all the rest of Europe, a land of 
islands and peninsulas ; and that was, no doubt, one main 
reason why it was the first part of Europe to stand forth as 
great and free in the eyes of the whole world. For in early 
times the sea-coast is always the part of a land which is first 
civilized, because it is the part which can most easily have 
trade and other dealings with other parts of the world. Thus, 
as Greece was the first part of Europe to become civilized, so 
the coasts and islands of Greece were both sooner and more 
highly civilized than the other inland parts. Those inland 
parts are almost everywhere full of mountains and valleys, so 
that the different parts of the land, both on the sea-coast and 
in the inland parts, were very much cut off from one another. 
Each valley or island or little peninsula had its own town, 
with its own little territory, forming, whenever it could, a 



22 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap, 

separate government independent of all others, and with the 
right of making war and peace, just as if it had been a great 
kingdom. 

3. Character of Grecian History. — The geographical 
nature of the land in this way settled the history of the 
Greek people. It is only in much later times that a great 
kingdom or commonwealth can come to have the same 
political and intellectual life as a small state consisting of 
one city. In an early state of things the single city is always 
in advance of the great kingdom, not always in wealth or in 
mere bodily comforts, but always in political freedom and 
in real sharpness of wit. Thus the Greeks, with their many 
small states, were the 6trst people from whom we can learn 
any lessons m the art of politics, the art of ruling and 
persuading men according to law. The little common- 
wealths of Greece were the first states at once free and 
civilized which the world ever saw. They were the first 
scates which gave birth to great statesmen, orators, and 
generals who did great deeds, and to great historians who 
set down those great deeds in writing. It was in the Greek 
commonwealths, in short, that the political and intellectual 
life of the v/orid began. But, for the very reason that theit 
freedom came so early, they were not able to keep it so long 
as states in later times which have been equally free and 
of greater extent. 

4. The Greeks and the PhcEnicians. — WTiether the Greeks 
found any earlier inhabitants in the land which they made 
their own is a point on which we cannot be quite certain, but 
it is more likely that they did than that they did not. But 
it is certain that, when they began to spread themselves from 
the mainland into the islands, they found in the islands 
powerful rivals already settled. These were the Phcsnicians, 
as the Greeks called them, who were a Semitic people, and 
who played a great part in both Grecian and Roman history. 



II.] GREEKS AND PHCENICIANS. 23 

Their real name among themselves was Canaanites, and 
they dwelled on the coast of Palestine^ at the east end of 
the Mediterranean Sea, especially in the great cities of 
Sidon, Tyre, and Arados or Arvad. They were a more 
really civilized people, and made a nearer approach to free 
government, than any other people who were not Aryans. 
They were especially given to trade and to everything which 
had to do with a seafaring life. They had thus begun to 
spread their trade, and to found colonies, over a large part of 
the Mediterranean coast, before the Greeks became of any 
note in the world. They had even made their way beyond 
what the Greeks called the Pillars of Herakles, that is, 
beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, and had sailed from the 
Mediterranean Sea into the Ocean. They had there founded 
the city of Gades, which still keeps its name as Cadiz, and 
they founded other colonies, both in Spain and on the north- 
west coast of Africa, of which the most famous was Carthasre. 
They had also settlements in the islands of the ^gaean Sea, 
as well as in the greater islands of Cyprus and Sicily, and it 
was in these islands that they met the Greeks as enemies. 
But, even before the Greeks had begun to send out colonies, 
they had a good deal of trade with the Phoenicians. And as 
the Phoenicians were the more early civilized of the two 
nations, the Greeks seem to have learned several things of 
them, and above all the alphabet. The Greeks learned the 
letters which the Phoenicians used to write their own lan- 
guage, which was much the same as the Hebrew, and they 
adapted them, as well as they could, to the Greek language. 
And from them the alphabet gradually made its way to the 
Italians, and from them to the other nations of Europe, with 
such changes as each nation found needful for its ov/n tongue. 
The Phoenicians did much in this way towards helping on 
the civihzation of the Greeks : but there is no reason to 
believe that the Phoenicians, or any other people of Asia or 



24 , GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES. [ciiAP. 



Africa, founded any settlements in Greece itself after the 
Hellenes had once made the land their own. 

5. Foundation of the Greek Colonies. — From the main- 
land of Greece the Greek people gradually spread them.- 
selves over most of the neighbouring islands, and over a 
large part of the Mediterranean coast, especially on the 
shores nearest to their own land. In fact, we may say 
that the Phoenicians and the Greeks between them planted 
colonies round the whole coast of the Mediterranean, save in 
two parts only. One of these was Egypt on the south ; the 
other was Ceittral and Northern Italy, where the native 
inhabitants were far too strong and brave to allow strangers 
to settle among them. The Greeks thus spread themselves 
over all the islands of the ^^gceaii Sea, over the coasts ot 
Macedonia and Thrace to the north and of Asia Minor to 
the east, as well as in the islands to the west of Greece, 
Korkyra and the others which are known now as the Ionian 
Islands. A great part of this region became fully as Greek 
as Greece itself, only even here in some parts of the coast 
the Greek possessions were not quite unbroken, but were 
simply a city here and there, and nowhere, except in Greece 
itself, did the Greek colonists get very far from the sea. 
Other colonies were gradually planted in Cypr^cs, in Sicily 
and Southern Italy, and on the coast of Illyria on the eastern 
side of the Hadriatic. And there was one part of the 
Mediterranean coast which was occupied by Greek colonies 
where we should rather have looked for Phoenicians ; that 
is, in the lands west of Egypt, where several Greek cities 
arose, the chief of which was Kyrene. These were the only 
Greek settlements on the south coast of the Mediterranean. 
But some Greek colonies were planted as far east as the 
-shores of the Euxine, and others as far west as the shores ot 
Gatd and Noi'thern Spai7i. One Greek colony in these 
parts which should be specially remembered was Massalia^ 



n.] GFEEKS AND BARBARIANS. 25 

now Marseille. This was the only great Greek city in the 
western part of the Mediterranean, and it was the head of 
several smaller settlements on the coasts of Gaul and Spain. 
In the southern part of Spain, and in the greater part of 
northern Africa, the Greeks could not settle, because there 
the Phoenicians had settled before them. And no Greek 
sailors were ever bold enough to pass the Pillars of Hera- 
kles and to plant colonies on the shores of the Ocean. 

6. Greeks and Barbarians. — We have thus seen the extent 
of country over which the Greek people spread themselves. 
There v/as their own old country and the islands nearest to 
itj where they alone occupied the whole land ; and there 
were also the more distant colonies, where Greek cities were 
planted here and there, on the coasts of lands which were 
occupied by men of other nations, or, as the Greeks called 
them, Barbarians. This word Barbarians, in its first use 
among the Greeks, simply meant that the people so called 
were people whose language the Greeks did not understand. 
They called them Barbarians, even though their blood and 
speech were nearly akin to their own, if only the difference 
was so great that their speech was not understood. It fol- 
lowed that in most parts of the world it was easy to tell 
who were Greeks and who were Barbarians^ but that along 
the northern frontier of Greece the line was less strongly 
drawn than elsewhere. Along that border the ruder tribes 
of the Greek nation, the ^tolians, Akarnanians, and others, 
lived alongside of other tribes who were not Greek, but who 
seem to have been closely allied to the Greeks. If you turn 
to the map, you will see along this northern border the lands 
of Macedonia, Epeiros, and Thessaly. Macedonia was ruled 
by Greek Kings, but it was never counted to be part of 
Greece till quite late times. Thessaly, on the other hand, 
was always reckoned as part of Greece, though the people 
who gave it its name seem not to have been of purely Greek 



26 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

origin. In Epeiros again the same tribes are by some writers 
called Greeks and by others Barbarians, and it was only in 
quite late times that Epeiros, like Macedonia, was allowed 
to be a Greek country. So, among the colonies, though all 
were planted among people whom the Greeks looked on as 
Barbarians, yet it made a great practical difference whether 
the people among whom they were planted were originally 
akin to the Greeks or not. Thus, in many countries, as in 
the lands round the y^gsean and also in Italy and Sicily, 
the Greeks settled chiefly among people who were really 
very near to them in blood and speech, and who gradually 
adopted the Greek language and manners. Thus both Sicily 
and Southern Italy became quite Greek countries, though in 
Sicily the Greeks had to keep up a long struggle against the 
Phoenicians of Carthage, who also planted several colonies in 
that island. In Cyprus also the same struggle went on, and 
the island became partly Greek and partly Phcenician. But 
in those of the ^gaean Islands where the Phoenicians had 
settled, the Greeks drove them out altogether. For there 
was no chance of the Phoenicians taking to Greek ways as 
the Italians and Sicilians did. 

7. The Greek Commonwealths. — Greece itself, the land to 
the south of the doubtful lands like Macedonia and Epeiros, 
was the only land which was wholly and purely Greek, where 
there was no doubt as to the whole people being Greek, and 
where we find the oldest and most famous cities of the Greek 
name. Such, in the great peninsula called Pelopo7inesos, were 
Sparta and Argos, and, in early times, Mykene j Corinth 
too on the Isthmus^ and beyond the Isthmus, Megara, 
Athens^ Thebes, and, in very early times, Orchojnenos. Each 
Greek city, whenever it was strong enough, formed an inde- 
pendent state with its own little territory ; but it often hap- 
pened that a stronger city brought a weaker one more or 
less under its power. And in some parts of Greece several 



IL] THE GREEK COMMONWEALTHS. 27 

towns joined together in Leagues, each town managing its 
own affairs for itself, but the whole making war and peace 
as a single state. Thus in Peloponnesos, first Mykene, then 
Argos, and lastly Sparta, held the first place, each in turn 
contriving to get more or less power over a greater or 
smaller number of other cities. And it would almost seem 
that in very early times the Kings of Mykene had a certain 
power over all Peloponnesos and many of the islands. Still, 
even when a Greek city came more or less under the power 
of a stronger city, it did not wholly lose the character of a 
separate commonwealth. And when the cities of Old Greece 
began to send out colonies, those colonies became separate 
commonwealths also. Each colony came forth from some 
city in the mother country, and it often happened that a colony 
sent forth colonies of its own in turn. Each colony became 
an independent state, owing a certain respect to the mother 
city, but not being subject to it. And, as the colonies were 
commonly planted where there was a rich country or a posi- 
tion good for trade, many of them became very flourishing 
and powerful. In the seventh and sixth centuries before 
Christ, many of the colonial cities, as Miletos in Asia, Syba- 
ris in Italy, and Syracuse in Sicily, were among the most 
flourishing of all Greek cities, far more so than most of 
the cities in Greece itself. But the colonies were for the 
most part not so well able to keep their freedom as the cities 
in Greece were. 

8. Forms of Government. — In the earliest days of Greece 
we find much the same form of government in the small Greek 
states which we find among all the Aryan nations of whose 
early condition we have any account. But both the Greeks 
and the Italians were unlike the Teutons and some of the 
other Aryan nations in one thing. That is because they were 
gathered together in cities from the very beginning, while 
some of the other nations were collections, not so much of 



28 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

cities as of tribes. Still the early form of government was 
much the same in both cases. Each tribe or city had its 
own King or chief, whose office was mostly confined to one 
family, for the Kings were commonly held to be of the blood 
of the Gods. The King was the chief leader both in peace 
and war; but he could not do everything according to his own 
pleasure. For there was always a Council of elders or chief 
men, and also an Assembly of the whole people or at least 
of all those who were held to have the full rights of citizens. 
This kind of kingship lasted in Greece through the whole of 
die earliest times, through what are called the Heroic Ages, 
and in the neighbouring lands of Epeiros and Macedonia a 
kingship of much the same kind lasted on through nearly the 
whole of their history. But in Greece itself the kingly power 
was gradually abolished in most of the cities, and they be- 
came commonwealths. At first these commonwealths were 
aristocracies J that is to say, only men of certain families 
were allowed to fill public offices and to take part in the 
assemblies by which the city was governed. These privi- 
leged families would in most cases be the descendants of the 
oldest inhabitants of the city, who did not choose to admit 
new-comers to the same full rights as themselves. Some of 
the Greek cities remained aristocracies till very late times ; 
but others soon heczrae democracies ; that is to say, all citizens 
were allowed to hold offices and to attend the assemblies. 
But it must be remembered that everyone who lived in a 
Greek city was not therefore a citizen. For in most parts 
of Greece there were many slaves j and if a man from one 
city went to live in another, even though the city in which 
he went to live was a democracy, neither he nor his chil- 
dren were made citizens as a matter of course. In a few 
cities the name King,\n Greek Basileus, remained in use 
as the title of a magistrate, though one who no longer held 
the chief power. And in Sparta they always went on having 



ri-] FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 



29 



Kings of the old royal house, tv/o Kings at a time, who re- 
tained much power both in military and in religious matters, 
though they were no longer the chief rulers of the state. 

9. The Tyrants. — All the three chief forms of government, 
Monarchy, A?istocracy, and De?noc?'acy, were held in Greece 
to be lawful ; but there was another kind which was always 
deemed unlawful. This was Tyrcumy. It sometimes hap- 
pened, especially in cities where the nobles and the people 
were quarrelhng as to whether the commonwealth should 
be aristocratic or democratic, that some man would snatch 
away the power from both and make himself Tyrant. That 
is to say, he would, perhaps with the good will of part of the 
people, seize the power, and much more than the power, ot 
the old Kings. The word Ty7'ant meant at first no more 
than that a man had got the power of a King in a city where 
there was no King by law. It did not necessarily mean that 
he used his power badly or cruelly, though, as most of the 
Tyrants did so, the word came to have a worse meaning than 
it had at first. The time when most of the Tyrants reigned 
in Greece was in the seventh and sixth centuries before 
Christ ; and the most famous of them were Peisistratos and 
his sons, who ruled at Athens in the sixth century. In the 
colonies, and especially in Sicily, Tyrants went on rising and 
falling during almost the whole time of Grecian history. But 
in old Greece we do not hear much of them after the sons ot 
Peisistratos were driven out, about the end of the sixth century, 
till quite the later times of Grecian history, when Tyrants 
again were common, but Tyrants of quite another kind. 

10. The Greek Religion. — The religion of the Greeks was 
one of those forms of mythology which have been already 
spoken of as growing up among most of the Aryan nations. 
All the powers of nature and all the acts of man's life were 
believed to be under the care of different deities, of different 
degrees of power. The head of all was Zeus the God of the 



30 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

sky, and he is described as reigning on Mount Olympos in 
Thessaly, where the Gods were beheved to dwell, with his 
Council and his general Assembly, much like an early Greek 
King on earth. The art and literature of the Greeks, and 
indeed their government and their whole life, were closely 
bound up with their religion. The poets had from the begin- 
ning many beautiful stories to tell about the Gods and about 
the Heroes^ who were mostly said to be children of the Gods. 
And when the Greeks began to practise the arts, it was in 
honour of the Gods and Heroes that the noblest buildings 
and the most beautiful statues and pictures were made. 

II. The Early History of Greece. — Of the earliest times 
of Grecian history we have no accounts written down at the 
time ; we have to make out what we can from the tradi- 
tions preserved by later writers, and from the notices of the 
poets. For composition in verse always goes before com- 
position in prose, and the earliest Greek writings that we 
have are those of the poets. The poems which go by the 
name of Homer, the Iliad and Odyssey, give us a picture of 
the state of things in the earliest days of Greece, and allusions 
and expressions in them also help us to some particular facts. 
But scholars no longer believe that the story of the war of 
Troy is a true history, though the tale most likely arose out 
of the settlements of the Greeks on the north-west coast ot 
Asia. These settlements were among the earliest of the 
Greek colonies, the very earliest probably being the settle- 
ments in the southern islands of the ^Egaean, which Homer 
himself seems to speak of. These were so early that it is 
vain to try to give them any exact date. Presently v/e get 
glimmerings, which seem to have been preserved partly by 
poets and partly by tradition, of a great movement by which 
the Dorians, a people of Northern Greece, came and con- 
quered the Achaians in Peloponnesos and reigned in their 
chief cities, Argos, Sparta, Corinth, and others. The other 



IL] EARLY HISTORY OF GREECE. 31 

chief division of the Greek nations was the lonians, whose 
chief city was Athens, and who are said to have planted many 
colonies in Asia about the same time when the Dorians came 
into Peloponnesos. And, when we get down to times to 
which we can give something more like exact dates, we 
have remains of several poets which sometimes help us 
to particular facts. Thus we learn something of a war in 
which Sparta conquered her neighbours of Messene from 
the poems of the minstrel Tyrtaios, who made songs to 
encourage the Spartan warriors. This was in the seventh 
century before Christ ; and in the next century, Solon, the 
famous lawgiver of Athens, made laws for his own city, and 
first gave the mass of the people a share in the government, 
which was the beginning of the famous 'democracy. Solon 
was also a poet, and we have some remains of his verses, 
which, throw light on his political doings. So again, the 
poems of Theognis of Megara throw some light on the dis- 
putes between the nobles and the people in that city. But 
from fragments like these we can get no connected history, 
so that most of what we know of these days comes from 
later writers, who did not live near the time, and whose 
accounts therefore cannot be trusted in every detail. It is 
only when we come to the Persian Wars, in the beginning of 
the fifth century before Christ, that we begin to have really 
trustworthy accounts. For those times we have the his- 
tory of Herodotos, who, though he did not himself -live at 
the time, had seen and spoken with those who did. By this 
time the chief cities of Greece had settled down into their 
several forms of government, aristocratic or democratic. 
And most of the colonies had been founded, especially those 
in Italy and Sicily, which were at this time very flourishing, 
though many of them were under Tyrants. Greece had now 
pretty well put on the shape which she was to v/ear during 
the greatest times of her history, and she had now to bear 



32 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

the trial of a great foreign invasion and to come out all the 
stronger for it. 

12. The Persians. — The people of Persia, though they lived 
far away from the shores of the Mediterranean, in the further 
part of Asia beyond the great rivers Eitphrates and Tigris, 
were much more nearly allied to the Greeks in blood and 
speech than most of the nations which lay between them. 
For they belonged to the Eastern branch of the Aryan family, 
who had remained so long separate from their kinsfolk in 
Europe, and who now met them as enemies. The Persians 
first began to be of importance in the sixth century before 
Christ, when, under their King Cyrus, they became a con- 
quering people. He took Babylon, which at that time was 
the great power of Asia, and also conquered the kingdom of 
Lydia in Asia Minor, a conquest which first brought the 
Persians across the Greeks, first in Asia and then in Europe. 
For the Greeks who were settled along the coast of Asia had 
been just before conquered by Croesus, King of Lydia, the first 
foreign prince who ever bore rule over any Greeks ; and now, 
as being part of the dominions of Croesus, they were con- 
quered again by Cyrus. The Greek cities of Asia, which had, 
up to this time, been among the greatest cities of the Greek 
name, now lost their freedom and much of their greatness. 
And from this time various disputes arose between the Persian 
Kings and the Greeks in Europe. The Athenians had now 
driven out their Tyrants and had made their government 
more democratic. They were therefore full of life and energy, 
and they gave help to the Asiatic Greeks in an attempt to 
throw off the Persian yoke. Then the Persian King Daritis 
wished to make the Athenians to take back Hippias, the son 
of Peisistratos, who had been their Tyrant. At last Darius 
made up his mind to punish the Athenians and to bring the 
other Greeks under his power ; and thus the wars between 
Greece and Persia began. 



II.] THE PERSIAN WARS. 33 

13. The Persian Wars. — The first Persian expedition 
against Greece was sent by Darius in the year 490 B.C. A 
Persian fleet crossed the JEgsean, and landed an army in 
Attica, But, far smaller as their numbers were, the Athe- 
nians, under their general Miltiadh^ utterly defeated the 
invaders in the famous battle of Maj^athon. In this battle 
the Athenians had no help except a small force from their 
neighbours of Plataia, a small town on the Boeotian border, 
which was in close alliance with them. This was the first of 
all the victories of the West over the East, the first battle 
which showed how skill and discipline can prevail over mere 
numbers. As such, it is perhaps the most memorable battle in 
the history of the world. Ten years later, in 480 B.C., a much 
greater Persian expedition came under King Xerxes himself, 
the son of Darius. He came by land, and all the native 
kingdoms and Greek colonies on the north coast of the 
^gsean, and even a large part of Greece itself, submitted to 
him. Some Greek cities indeed, especially Thebes, fought 
for the Barbarians against their countrymen. But Athens, 
Sparta, and several other Greek cities withstood the power 
of Xerxes, and in the end drove his vast fleet and army 
back again in utter defeat. In this year 480 were fought 
the battle of Thermopylai, where the Spartan King Leonidas 
was killed, and the seafight of Salamis, won chiefly by the 
Athenian fleet under Themistokles. After this Xerxes went 
back ; but in the next year his general Mardo7tios was defeated 
by the Spartans and other Greeks in the battle of Plataia, 
and the same day the Persians were also defeated both by 
land and sea at Mykale, on the coast of Asia. These three 
battles, Sala?nis, Plataia, and Mykale, decided the war, and 
the Persians never again dared to invade Greece itself. But 
the war went on for several years longer before the Persians 
were driven out of various posts which they held north of the 
<E-gaean. Still they were at last wholly driven out of Europe, 

n 



34 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

and they were even obliged to withdraw for a time from the 
Greek cities of Asia. 

14. The Grov/th of Athens.— At thebeginningofthe Persian 
Wars Sparta was generally looked up to as the chief state of 
Greece ; but, as Athens was much the stronger at sea, it was 
soon found that she was better able than Sparta to carry on 
the war against the Persians, and to recover and protect the 
islands and cities on the coasts. Most of the cities therefore 
joined in a League, of which Athens was the head, and which 
was set in order by the Athenian Aristeides, surnamed" the 
Just. But after a time Athens, instead of being merely the 
head, gradually became the mistress of these smaller states, 
and most of them became her subjects, paying tribute to her. 
Athens thus rose to a wonderful degree of power and splendour, 
beyond that of any of the other cities of Greece. The chief 
man at Athens at this time was Perikles^ the greatest states- 
man of Greece, perhaps of the world, under whose influence 
the Athenian government became a still more perfect demo- 
cracy. In his time Athens was adorned with the temples 
and other public buildings which the world has admired 
ever since. This was also the time of the great dramatic 
poets, j£schylus^ Sophokles^ Eiiripides^ and Aristophanes. 
^schylus had fought in all the great battles with the Persians. 
Euripides and Aristophanes were younger men who lived on 
through the next period. Oratory, M^hich was so needful in a 
democratic state, began to be cultivated as an art, and so 
were the different forms of philosophy ; in fact, there never 
was a time when the human mind v/as brought so near to 
its highest pitch as in these few years of the greatest power 
and splendour of Athens. 

15. The Peloponnesian War. — But the great power of 
Athens raised the jealousy of many of the other Greek cities, 
and at last a war broke out between Athens and her allies 
on the one side, and Sparta and her allies on the other. 



ri,] THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 35 

This war, which began in the year 431 B.C. and lasted for 
twenty-nine years almost without stopping, was known 
as the Peloponnesian War, because it was waged by the 
Athenians against Sparta and her allies, among whom 
were the greater part of the cities of Peloponnhos, besides 
Thebes and some other cities in other parts of Greece. 
Of this war we know all the events in great detail, because 
we have the history of it from writers who hved at the time. 
The history of the greater part of the war was written by 
Thucydides, who was not only living at the time, but himself 
held a high command in the Athenian army. And the history 
of the latter years of the v/ar was written by Xenophon, another 
Athenian writer, who also lived at the time. This war might 
be looked on as a war between lonians and Dorians, between 
democracy and oligarchy^ Athens being the chief of the Ionian 
and democratic states, and Sparta the chief of the Dorian 
and aristocratic states. But the two parties were never 
exactly divided either according to descent or according to 
forms of government. It is perhaps more important to re^ 
mark that Spaita had many free and willing allies, while 
Athens had but few, so that she had to fight mainly with 
her own powers and those of the allies who were really her 
subjects. During the first ten years of the war, down to the 
year 421, the two parties contended with nearly equal success, 
the Athenians being much the stronger by sea, and the 
Spartans and their allies by land. A peace was then made, 
but it was not very well kept ; so that Thucydides says that 
the years of peace ought to be reckoned as a part of the war. 
Then, in 415, the Athenians sent a fleet to attack the city of 
Syracuse in Sicily. The Syracusans got help from Sparta, 
and so the war began again ; but, after two years of fighting 
and siege, the Athenians were altogether defeated before 
Syiacuse. The allies of Athens now began to revolt, and 
the war during the later years was carried on almost 

D 2 



36 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

wholly on the coasts of Asia. The Persians now began to 
take a share in it, because they were eager to drive away 
■the Athenians from those coasts, and to get back the 
Greek cities in Asia. But they did more in the way of 
giving, and sometimes only promising, money to the Spartans 
than by actually fighting. Several battles, chiefly by sea, were 
fought in these wars with varying success ; and it is wonder- 
ful to see how Athens regained her strength after her loss 
before Syracuse. At last, in the year 405, the Athenians 
were defeated by the Spartan admiral Lysandros at Aigos- 
potamos in the Hellespont. Athens was now besieged, and 
in the next year she had to surrender. She now lost all 
her dominion and her great naval power, and was obliged to 
become a member of the Spartan alliance. Her democra- 
tical government was also taken away, and an oligarchy of 
thirty men was set up under the protection of Sparta. But in 
the next year, 403, the oligarchy was put down, and Athens, 
though she did not get back her power, at least got back 
her freedom. 

16. The Dominion of Sparta. — At this time, at the end of 
the fifth century before Christ, Sparta was more than ever 
the greatest power of Greece. From this time Athens has 
no longer any claim to be looked on as politically the first 
power of Greece. But she still remained one of the greatest 
among the Grecian cities, and, as her political power grew 
less, she became more and more the acknowledged chief in 
all kinds of literature and philosophy. Her loss of any- 
thing like an equal power v/ith Sparta led to great changes 
in the course of the next century. New powers began to 
come to the front. We shall, first of all, see the foremost 
place in Greece held for a while by Thebes, the chief city of 
Boeotia, which had always been reckoned one of the greater 
cities of Greece, but which during the Peloponnesian war had 
played only a secondary part as one of the allies of Sparta. 



".] SPARTA AND THEBES. 



37 



We shall next see the power over all Greece fall into the 
hands of a state which had hitherto not been reckoned to be 
Greek at all, through the victories of the great Macedonian 
Kings, Philip and Alexaiider. But for a while the Spartans 
had it all their own way. No state in Greece could stana 
up against them ; the government of most of the cities passed 
into the hands of men who were ready to do whatever the 
Spartans told them, and in many of them there even were 
Spartan governors and garrisons. A few years after the end 
of the Peloponnesian war, the Spartans made war upoi> 
Persia, and their King Aghilaos waged several successful; 
campaigns in Asia Minor. But by this time several of the 
Greek cities had got jealous and weary of the Spartan 
power, and the Persian King Artaxerxes, against whom the 
Spartans were fighting, was naturally glad to help them 
with both money and ships. So in the year 394 Agesilaos 
had to come back to withstand a confederacy formed against 
Sparta by Athens^ Argos, Corinth, and Thebes. Several 
battles were fought ; and, though the Spartans commonly 
had the victory, yet it was shown that the Theban soldiers 
were able to do great things. In the former part of this 
war the Persian King sent his great Phoenician fleet to help 
the Athenians ; but afterwards he was persuaded to change 
sides, and in 387 a peace was made, called the Peace of 
Antalkidas, by which the Greek cities of Asia were given up 
to Persia, and those of Europe were declared to be every one 
independent. But in truth the power of Sparta now became 
greater than ever, and the Spartans domineered and inter- 
fered with the other cities even more than before. Among 
other things, they treacherously seized the Kadmeia or citadel 
of Thebes, and put a Spartan garrison in it. They also put 
down a confederacy which the people of Olynthos were 
making among the Greek cities on the coasts of Macedonia 
and Thrace, and thus took sway what might have been a 



38 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 



great check to the growing power of the Macedonian 
Kings. 

17. The Rise of Thebes. — It was now that the power of 
Sparta was at its very highest that it was overthrown. The 
Thebans^ who had shown in the former war that they were 
nearly as good soldiers as the Spartans themselves, now 
rose against them. In 379 the Spartans were driven out 
of Thebes ; a democratical government was set up, and 
Thebes, under two great citizens, Pelopidas and Epamei- 
7tondas, became for a while the chief power of Greece. 
The Spartans were defeated in 371, the first time they had 
ever been defeated in a pitched battle, at Leuktra in Boeotia. 
After this Epameinondas invaded Peloponnesos several 
times. He greatly weakened the power of Sparta by restor- 
ing the independence of Messene^ which the Spartans had 
long ago conquered, and by persuading the Arkadians to 
join in a League and to found Megalopolis or the Great City^ 
near the Spartan frontier. During the first part- of this war 
the Athenians took part with Thebes, and in the later part 
with Sparta ; and in the course of it they won back a great 
deal of their power by sea, and again got many of the islands 
and maritime cities to become their allies. At last, in 362, 
Epameinondas was killed ^X Manlineia in a battle against the 
Spartans and Athenians, and after his death, as there was 
no one left in Thebes fit to take his place, the power of the 
city gradually died out. 

18. The Rise of Macedonia. — We have already seen that, 
though the Macedonians were probably closely allied to the 
Greeks, and though the Macedonian Kings were acknow- 
ledged to be of Greek descent, yet Macedonia had hitherto 
not been reckoned as a Greek state. Its Kings had not 
taken much share in Greek affairs, but several of them 
had done mach to strengthen their kingdom against the 
neighbouring Barbarians, and also to bring in Greek arts 



11. j ^ RISE OF MACEDONIA. 39 

and civilization among their own people. Just at this time 
there arose in Macedonia a King called Philip the son of 
Amyntas, who did much greater things than any of the Kings 
who had gone before him. His great object was, not exactly 
to conquer Greece or make it part of his own kingdom, but 
rather to get Macedonia acknowledged as a Greek state, and, 
as such, to win for it the same kind of supremacy over the 
other Greek states which had been held at different times by 
Mykene, Argos, Sparta, Athens, and Thebes. He artfully 
contrived to mix himself up with Grecian affairs, and to 
persuade many of the Grecian states to look upon him as 
their deliverer, and as the champion of the god Apollo?i. The 
great temple of Delphi had been plundered by the Phokiajis, 
and Philip put himself forward as the avenger of this crime, 
and got himself acknowledged as a member of the Ajnphi- 
ktio7tic Cozcficil, the great religious assembly of Greece, which 
looked after the affairs of the Delphian Temple, This was 
much the same as formally acknowledging Macedonia to be a 
Greek state. Philip also conquered the Greek city of Olynthos 
in the neighbourhood of his own kingdom, and made the 
peninsula called Chalkidike, which runs out as it were with 
three fingers into the ^gsean, part of Macedonia. This he 
might perhaps not have been able to do, if the Spartans had 
not already destroyed the great Greek alliance which the 
Olynthians had begun to make in those parts. Philip was 
several times at war with Athens, and it was during these 
wars that the great orator Demosthejies made himself famous 
by the speeches which he made to stir up his countrymen to 
act vigorously. Philip's last war was against . Athens and 
Thebes together, and in 338 he gained a victory over them 
at Chaironeia in Boeotia, from which the overthrow of Grecian 
freedom may be dated. After this, all the Greeks, except the 
Spartans, were partly persuaded, partly compelled, to hold a 
synod at Corinth, where Philip was elected captain-general of 



40 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

all Greece, to make war on Persia and avenge the old inva- 
sions of Greece by Darius and Xerxes. But, while he was 
making ready for a great expedition into Asia, he was mur- 
dered in the year 336 by one of his own subjects. 

19. Alexander the Great. — Philip was succeeded by his 
son Alexander., known as Alexander the Great. He was 
presently acknowledged as the leader of Greece against the 
Persians, as his father had been. Thebes however, where 
Philip had put a Macedonian garrison, now revolted, but it 
was taken and destroyed by Alexander. In the next year, 
334, Alexander set out on his great expedition, and he never 
returned to Macedonia and Greece. In the course of six 
years he completely subdued the Persian Empire, fighting 
three famous battles, at the river GraJiikos in Asia Minor in 
334, at Issos, near the borders of Cilicia and Syria, in 333, 
and at Arbela or Gaugajnela in Assyria in 331. In these last 
two "battles the Persian King Darius was present, and was 
utterly defeated. Between the two last battles Alexander 
besieged and took Tyre, and received the submission of 
Egypt, where he founded the famous city which has ever 
since borne his name, Alexandria. Soon after the battle of 
Gaugamela Darius was murdered by some of his own officers, 
and Alexander now looked upon himself as King of Persia. 
He afterwards set out, half exploring, half conquering, as far 
as the river Hyphasis in northern hidia, beyond which his 
soldiers refused to follow him. At last he died at Babylon 
in 323, having made greater conquests than were ever made 
by any European prince before him or after him. And there 
was no conqueror whose conquests were more important, and 
in a certain sense more lasting ; for, though his great empire 
broke in pieces almost at once, yet the effects of his career 
have remained to all time. 

20. Effects of the Conquests of Alexander. — The con- 
quests of Alexander, though they were won so quickly, and 



X 



II.] CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER. 



41 



thoiig^h a large part of them were soon lost again, made a 
great and lasting change throughout a large part of the world. 
Both he and those who came after him were great builders of 
cities in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and as far as their con- 
quests reached. In each of these cities was placed a Greek or 
Macedonian colony, and in the western part of Asia most of 
these cities lived and flourished, and some of them, like Alex- 
andria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria, soon took their place 
among the greatest cities in the world. The Greek language 
became the tongue of all government and hterature through- 
out-many countries where the people were not Greek by birth. 
It was thus at the very moment that Greece began to lose 
her political freedom- that she made, as it were, an intellec-" 
tual conquest of a large part of the world. And though, in 
the cities and lands which in this way became partially 
Hellenized, there was neither the political freedom nor the 
original genius of the great statesmen and writers of old 
Greece, yet mere learning and science flourished as they had 
never flourished before. The Greek tongue became the 
common speech of the civihzed world, the speech which men 
of different nations used in speaking to one another, much 
as they use French now. The Greek colonies had done 
much to spread the Greek language and manners over a 
large part of the world. The Macedonian conquests now 
did still more ; but they did not, as the old colonies had done, 
carry also Greek freedom with them. 

21. The Successors of Alexander. — The great empire of 
Alexander did not hold together even in name for more than 
a few years after his death. He left no one in the Macedo- 
nian royal family who was at all fit to take his place, and 
his dominions were gradually divided among his generals, 
who after a little while took the title of Kings. Thus arose 
the kingdom of the Ptolemies in Egypt, and that of the de- 
scendants of Sclenkos in the East, which gradually shrank 



42 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

up into the kingdom of Syria. In the countries beyond 
the Tigris the Macedonian power gradually died out; but 
various states arose in Asia Minor, which were not strictly 
Greek, but which had a greater or less tinge of Greek culti- 
vation. Such were the kingdom oi Pergamos and the League 
of the cities of Lykia. These arose in countries which had 
been fully subdued by Alexander, and which won their 
independence only because the descendants of Seleukos 
could not keep their great dominions together. But Alex- 
andei-'s conquests had been made so fast that some parts 
even of Western Asia were not fully subdued. Thus out of 
the fragments of the Persian Empire several kingdoms arose, 
•like those of Pontes and Bithynia, which were ruled by native 
Kings, but which also affected something of Greek civilization. 
And some real Greek states still contrived to keep their inde- 
pendence on or near the coast of Asia, as the city of Byzan- 
tio7i, the island of Rhodes, and the city of Herakleia, which 
last was sometimes a commonwealth and sometimes under 
tyrants. Of many of these states we shall hear again as they 
came one by one under the power of Rome. But we are now 
more concerned with what happened in Macedonia and in 
Greece itself. 

22. The later Macedonian Kings. — The death of Alexander 
was followed by a time of great confusion in Macedonia and 
Greece. Even while Alexander was away in Asia, the Spar- 
tans, under their king Agis, had tried to throw off the Mace- 
donian yoke, but in vain. After Alexander's death another 
attempt was made by several of the Greek states, especially 
the Athenians, who were again stirred up by Demosthenes, 
and the ^tolians. These last were a people of western 
Greece, the least civilized of all the Greek states, but which 
now began to rise to great importance. This was called 
the Lamian War. In the end the Athenians had to yield, 
and they were obliged by the Macedonian general Antipatros 



II.] LATER MACEDONIAN KINGS. 43 

to change their constitution, making it much less democratical 
than before, and depriving many of the citizens of their 
votes. For many years there was the greatest confusion in 
Macedonia and Greece and all the neighbouring countries. 
And things were made worse by an attack from an enemy 
with whom the Greeks had never before had anything to do. 
Greece and Macedonia were invaded by the Gauls. By these 
we need not understand people from Gaul itself, but some of 
those Celtic tribes which were still in the east of Europe. 
After doing much mischief in those parts, the Gauls crossed 
over into Asia, and there founded a state of their own which 
was called Galatia, and, as they too began to learn some- 
thing of Greek civilization, Gallo-grcecia. Meanwhile Kings 
were being constantly set up and overthrown in Macedonia, 
and each of them tried to get as much power and influ- 
ence as he could in Greece itself. At this time too Epei- 
ros, a country which hitherto had been of very little im- 
portance, became a powerful state under its King PyrrhoSy 
who at one time obtained possession of Macedonia. He also 
waged -wars in Italy and Sicily, which will be spoken of in 
the next chapter, and he had a great deal to do with the 
affairs of Peloponnesos, where he was at last killed in be- 
sieging Argos in 272. From this time things became rather 
more settled ; a second time of freedom, if not of great- 
ness, began in Greece, and a regular dynasty of Kings fixed 
itself in Macedonia. The old royal family was quite extinct, 
and the second set of Macedonian Kings were the descen- 
dants of Antigonos, one of the most famous of Alexander's 
generals. His son Demetrios^ surnamed Poliorketh or the 
Besieger^ got possession of the crown of Macedonia in 294, 
Both he and his son Antigonos Gonatas were driven out more 
than once, but in the end Antigonos contrived to keep the 
Macedonian crown, and to hand it on to his descendants, who 
held it till the Macedonian kingdom was conquered by Rome. 



44 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

23. The later History of Greece. — The last days of Gre- 
cian history, before the country came altogether under thp 
power of the Romans, are distinguished in several ways from 
the times which went before them. The states which are 
most important in these times are not the same as those 
which were most important in the old days of the Persian 
and Peloponnesian Wars. First of all we must remember 
that Macedonia and Epeiros must now be reckoned as Greek 
states, and that a large part of Greece, especially in th^ north? 
was now always, till the Roman conquest of Macedonia, more 
or less subject to the Macedonian Kings, or at least under 
their influence. And, among the states of Greece itself, the 
division of power was very different from what it had been 
in earlier times. In the days which we have now come to 
neither Athens nor Thebes was of very great account, and, 
though .Sparta was of great importance during part of the 
time, yet its greatness was only, as we may say, by fits and 
starts. We may say that the chief powers of Greece now 
were Macedonia, Achaia, ^ folia, and Sparta. Achaia and 
.^tolia are states of which but little is heard in Grecian 
history since the heroic times, and the strength which they 
had now chiefly came from a cause which must be explained 
a little more at length. 

24. The Achaian and iEtolian Leagues. — What chiefly 
distinguishes this part of Grecian history from earlier times 
is that we have now but little to do with single cities, but 
with cities and tribes bound together so as to make states of 
much greater size. With the exception of Sparta, the Greek 
states which play the greatest part at this time were joined 
together in Leagues, so as to form what is called a Federal 
Government, such as there is now in Switzerland and in the 
United States of America. That is to say, several cities 
agreed together to give up part of the power which naturally 
belonged to each city separately to an Assembly or Council or 



II.] LATER HISTORY OF GREECE. 45 



body of magistrates, in which all had a share. In a govern- 
ment of this kind the central power commonly deals with 
all matters which concern the League as a whole, while each 
city still acts much as it pleases in its own internal affairs. 
There had been several Leagues of this kind in Greece from 
the beginning, but they were chiefly among the smaller and 
less famous parts of the Greek nation, and they did not play 
any great part in Grecian affairs. The only one v/hich was 
of much note in earlier times was the League of Bosotia, and 
that could hardly be called a League with any truth, for 
Thebes was so much stronger than the other BcEotian cities 
as to be practically mistress of all of them. But now the 
Federal states of Greece come to be of special importance, 
because it was found that, as long as the cities stood one by 
one, they had no chance of keeping their freedom against 
the Macedonian Kings, and that their only chance of doing 
so was by several cities acting together in matters of peace 
and war as if they were one city. The greatest of these 
Leagues was that of Achaia, which began with the ten 
small Achaian cities on the south side of the Corinthian 
Gulf. These cities had been joined together in a League 
in early times, but in the times of the Macedonian power 
they had gradually fallen asunder, and in the days of 
Antigonos Gonatas several of them were in the hands of 
Tyrants^ who reigned under Macedonian protection. This 
was the case with many other cities of Greece also, and it 
was the great object of the League, as it grew and strength- 
ened, to set free these cities and to join them on to its own 
body. It was about the year 280 that the old Achaian 
towns began to draw together again, the chief leader in this 
work being Markos of Keryneia. About thirty years after, 
in 251, the League began to extend itself by admitting the 
city of Sikyon as a member of its body. Sikyon had just 
been set free by Arafos, who now became the leading man in 



46 GREECE AND THE GREEK COLONIES, [chap. 

the League, and, under his administration and that of Philo- 
pohnen who followed him, the League took in one city after 
another, Corinth, Megalopolis, Argos, and others, at first 
only with their own good will, but afterwards sometimes 
by force. At last all the cities of Peloponnesos and some 
cities beyond the Isthmus became members of the League. 
The ALiolian League on the other side of the Corinthian 
Gulf did not bear so good a character as the Achaian, 
though its form of government was much the same. For the 
^tolians, though a brave people and always stout in defend- 
ing their own freedom, were ruder and fiercer than most of 
the Greeks, and were much given to plunder both by sea 
and land. The ^tolian League thus greatly extended itself, 
and became more powerful than that of Achaia, but its policy 
was not so just and honourable as that of Achaia commonly 
was. There were also smaller Leagues in Phokis and 
Akarnania, besides the League of Epeiros, which was now 
counted as a Greek land, and which had got rid of its Kings 
an*^ had changed itself into a Federal commonwealth. Thus, 
except Sparta at one end and Macedonia at the other, by far 
the greater part of Greece was parted out among the dif- 
ferent Leagues. 

25. The last Days of Independent Greece. — For a long 
time the great object of the Achaians was to set free the 
cities which were more or less under the Macedonian power. 
But at last they became jealous of Sparta, which was again 
becoming a great power, and in 227 a war broke out between 
Sparta and the League. Sparta had now a great King called 
Kleomenh, who had upset the old oligarchy and had greatly 
increased the power both of the Kings and of the peo.ple. By 
so doing he put quite a new life into his country, and he 
pressed the Achaians so hard that at last, in 223, they asked 
help oi Antigonos Dosotz, King of Macedonia, which they only 
got by giving up to him the citadel of Corinth. The Mace- 



II.] THE ACHAIAN LEAGUE. 47 

donians and Achaians together defeated Kleomenes, and 
Sparta's second time of greatness died with him. The 
next King of Macedonia, Philip, kept on the alliance with 
Achaia, and the Achaians and Macedonians fought together 
in a war with yEtolia ; but, though the League gained in 
extent, it lost in real power and freedom by joining with a 
prince who was strong enough to be its master. Peace was 
made over all Greece in 216, but by this time the Romans 
had begun to meddle in Greek affairs, and from hence the 
history of Greece and Macedonia chiefly consists of the steps 
by which they were swallowed up in the Roman dominion. 
This last stage of their history will therefore best be told in 
our sketch of the history of Rome. 

26. Summary. — The history of Greece which we have thus 
run through, though it is the history only of a small part of the 
world for a few hundred years, is worth fully as much study 
as any later and wider part of history. It is, as it were, the 
history of the world in a small space. There is no lesson to 
be taught by history in general which is not taught by \lie 
history of Greece. The Greeks too, we should never forget, 
were the first people to show the world what real fre adorn 
and real civilization were. And they brought, not only politics, 
but art and science and literature of every kind to a higher 
pitch than any other people ever did without borrowing of 
others. In all these ways Greece has influenced the world 
for ever. Still the influence of Greece upon later history has 
been to a great degree indirect. Greece influenced Rome, 
and Rome influenced the world. But with the history of 
Rome an unbroken chain of events begins which is going 
on still. We will now try and trace it from the beginning. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. 

A ntient extent of Italy (i) — Gauls, Venetians, and LiguHans within 
its modern boundary (i) — effect of the geography of the country on 
its history (i) — inhabitants of Italy; the Etruscans and the 
Greek colonists (2) — t7(=w chief branches of the Italian race, Oscans 
and latins (2, 3) — language, religion, and government ; tendency 
to the formation of Leagues (4) — origin of Rome ; characteristics 
of its history (5) — the Roman Kings (6) — dynasty and expulsion 
of the Ta7-quinii (6) — the powers of the Kings transferred to the 
Constds (7) — disptites between Patricians and Plebeians (7) — wars 
of Rome zvith her neighbours ; taking of Veii (8) — taking of Rome 
by the Gauls (8) — wars with the Satjinites and Latins ; gradual 
conquest of Italy (9) — state of Italy under the Romans ; distinction 
of Rojnans, Latins, and Italians (10) — war with Pyrrhos (ll) — 
origin and history of Carthage {iz) — First Punic War (13) — cession 
of Sicily ; nature of the Rojnan Provinces (14) — Second Punic 
War ; campaigns of Hannibal and Scipio (15) — Third Punic 
War ; destrtiction of Carthage [id)— first dealings of the Romans 
with Greece (17) — First Macedonian War (17) — Second Macedonian 
War; alliance of Roine with ALtolia and Achaia (18) — campaign 
of Antiochos in Greece; Roman conquest of ^Ftolia (19) — Third 
Macedonian War; dismemberment of the Macedonian Kingdom 
(20) — Fourth Macedonian War ; Macedojtia becomes a Province 
(21) — war with Achaia ; destrtiction of Corhith (21) — the Mace- 
donian states in Asia ; revolt of the Parthians {2.2) — war with 
Antiochos ; and extension of Roman influe7ice in Asia (22) — forma.' 
tion of the Province of Asia (22) — conquest of Cisalpine Gaul (23) 
— <onquest of Spain (24) — inhabita^its of Transalpine Gaul (25) — 
affairs of Massalia; formation of the Roman Province in Gaul 



-FA.P. III.] GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 49 

(25) — invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones ; their defeat by 
Marius (26) — Rome dominant round the Mediterranean; her 
relations with Egypt (27) — internal disputes at Rome; her relations 
to her allies ; mitrder of the Gracchi (27) — the Social War ; final 
conquest of the Samnites (28) — Civil War of Marius and Sulla ; 
Dictatorship of Sulla (28) — zvar tvith Mithridates ; campaigns of 
Sulla and Poj72peius (29) — Roman conquest of Syria; dealings with 
Parthia (30) — disputes at Rome; rise of CcEsar (31) — C(2sar''s con- 
quests in Gaul ; his campaigns in Germany and Britain (32)- - 
Civil War of Pompeius and CcBsar ; Dictatoiship and dectth of 
CcBsar (33) — Second Civil War ; Battles of Philippi and Aktion ; 
Egypt becomes a province (34) — the younger Ccssar becomes 
Augustus; beginning of the Roman Empire (35). 

I. The Geography of Italy. — We now come to the history 
of. the second of the three great peninsulas, that of Italy. 
But we must remember that in early times the name of Italy 
did net take in so large a country as we now understand by 
that name, and that- a great part of its inhabitants did not 
belong to the race whom we shall have to speak of as Ita- 
lians. The greater part of Northern Italy, all north of the 
Po and a good deal to the south of it, was counted as part 
of Gaul, and was inhabited by Celtic people akin to those on 
the other side of the Alps. Thus there was Cisalpi7ie Gaul, 
Gaul on this side — that is the Italian side — of the Alps, as 
well as Transalphie Gaul, or Gaul beyond the Alps. Milan, 
Verona, Bologiia, and other famous Italian cities thus stand 
in what in early times was part of Gaul. And the country 
in the extreme north-west was held by the Venetians, a 
people whose origin is not very clear. They gave their name 
to the province of Veitetiaj but it must be remembered that 
they had nothing to do with the city of Venice, which did not 
begin till many ages later. And the land between the Gulf 
of Genoa and the Po was held by the Ligurians, a people 
who were most likely not Aryans at all, but a remnant of the 
older inhabitants, like the Basques. And people akin to the 

£ 



50 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

Ligurians seem also to have held the islands of Sardinia. 
and Corsica, and part of Sicily. None of these lands were 
counted as part of Italy in the earliest times, so that the 
name of Italy belonged much more strictly to the peninsula 
than it does now. The name seems to have been first given 
to quite the southern part only, and to have gradually spread 
itself northwards. The map will at once show that the 
peninsula of Italy, though- it is so long and narrow and has 
so great an extent of sea-coast, is not so broken up by bays 
and arms of the sea, nor has it so many islands round about 
it, as the other peninsula of Greece. And though some parts 
of Italy are mountainous, and though the great chain of the 
Apefinines runs from one end of the peninsula to the other, 
yet the whole land is not cut up into little valleys in the way 
that the more part of Greece is. Two things came of this 
difference between Greece and Italy. First, the Italians 
never became a seafaring people in the same degree that the 
Greeks did, nor did they in the same way send out colonies 
to all parts of the world that they knew. Secondly, in Italy 
itself there never were so many great cities as there were in 
Greece, and the small Italian towns were less jealous of their 
separate independence, and more ready than the Greek cities 
to join together in leagues. 

2. The Inhabitants of Italy. — Setting aside those coun- 
tries which were not then reckoned as part of Italy, we find 
at the beginning of history three chief nations dwelling in the 
peninsula. The part of Italy between the Arno and the 
Tiber was called Etrm'ia, the land of the Rase7ta as they 
called themselves, otherwise called Tyrrhenians, Tuscans, and 
Eirusca7is. The exact origin of the Etruscans is a great 
puzzle, but most likely they were an Aryan people, though 
their tongue was quite different from that of any of the 
other nations of Italy. In early times they seem to have 
spread over a much larger country both northwards and 



III.] THE INHABITANTS OF ITALY. 51 



southwards, but in trustworthy history they appear only in 
the lands already spoken of on the western coast, where they 
formed a confederation of twelve cities. They were great 
builders and skilful in many of the arts, and they were held 
to be specially wise in divination and all other matters 
belonging to the worship of the Gods. The Etruscans, like 
the Gauls and Ligurians, were settled in what we now call 
Italy before authentic history begins. At the other end, 
quite in the south, the Greeks planted many colonies, but 
these belong to a later time, when we may say that trustworthy 
history was beginning among the Greeks, though it had not 
yet begun among the Italians. The map will show that this 
part of Italy is much more like Greece, much more broken 
up by bays and peninsulas, than the rest of Italy. The Greeks 
were, as we have already seen, therefore able to found many 
colonies here, some of which flourished so greatly in early 
times that the country was known as Gt-eat Greece. But at the 
time when history begins, all Italy in the older sense (that is, 
not reckoning Liguria and Cisalpine Gaul), except Etruria, 
was inhabited by people whom we may specially call Italians. 
These, as we have already said, belonged to the same Aryan 
swarm as the Greeks, and their common forefathers must 
have stayed together after they had branched off from the 
forefathers of the Celts, Teutons, and others. The greater 
part of Italy was occupied by tribes sprung from this one 
swarm, some of whom however were more closely allied to 
the Greeks than others. But all may be looked on as coming 
nearer to the Greeks than to any other branch of the Aryan 
family. But, long before history begins, the Greeks and the 
Italians had parted off into distinct nations, and the Italians 
had also parted off into distinct nations among themselves. 

3. The Latin and Oscan Races. — We thus see that, set- 
ting aside the Etruscans and the Greeks who settled in later 
times, all the other nations of ancient Italy were allied to one 

E 2 



52 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

another, and all were more remotely allied to the Greeks. But 
they had parted faj: more widely among themselves than the 
different tribes of the Greek nation ever did. The Italian 
nations fall naturally into two great classes, which we may 
call roughly the Osca7is, lying to the north-east, and the 
Latijis, lying to the south-west. Of these the Latins were 
those who were more closely allied to the Greeks. The 
Siculi or Sikeh especially, in Southern Italy and in Sicily, to 
which island they gave their name, and some other of the 
tribes in the south, seem to have been as near to the Greeks, 
and to have been as easily Hellenized, as their neighbours 
in Epeiros and on the coast of Asia. The Oscan tribes_, 
Sabines, Umbrians, and others, were far more widely re 
moved from the Greeks, and presently the Oscan races began 
to press southward at the expense both of the Latins and of 
the Greek colonies. It was these O scans of the south, the 
Saninites^ Lucaniajis, and others, whose incursions gradually , 
destroyed the greatness and freedom of the Greek colonies 
in Italy. 

4. Language, Religion, and Government. — Our know- 
ledge of the ancient nations of Italy, besides the Romans, is 
very scanty, but it would seem that the differences between 
the Latin and Oscan races answered rather to the differences 
between the Greeks and their most nearly allied neighbours 
than to the differences of Dorians and lonians among the 
Greeks themselves. Still we cannot doubt that they always 
had much in common in language, religion, and govern- 
ment. The old languages of Italy all gradually gave way 
to the Latin, and we have only a few fragments remaining of 
any of them. And of their religion, even of that of the Latins, 
we know very little, because, when the Greeks and Romans 
came to have dealings with one another, they began to call 
each other's Gods by the names of those among their own 
Gods which seemed most like them. Thus the Greek Zetcs 



in.] ORIGIN OF ROME. 53 

and the Latin Jupiter got confounded, and the other Gods in 
the hke sort. But one thing we can see, that none of the 
Itahan nations had so many stories to tell about their Gods 
as the Greeks had. As for their government, we can see the 
same elements as among the Greeks and other Aryans, — the 
King or other chief, the nobles, and the ordinary freemen. 
In fact, owing, as we have already said, to the nature of the 
country, the common form of government in ancient Italy 
was much the same as that common in the ruder parts of 
Greece, several kindred districts or small towns joining 
together in a League. Of these Leagues the most famous 
m history was that of the Sammies, an inland people of the 
Oscan stock, and that of the thirty cities of the Latins on 
the west coast south of the Tiber. 

5. The Origin of Rome. — But there was one Latin city 
which was destined to be mighty and famous above all, and 
to become the mistress of Latium, of Italy, and of the world. 
This was the town of Rome on the Tiber. There were all 
manner of traditions in ancient times, and all manner of 
conjectures have been made by ingenious men in later days, 
as to the origin of this greatest of all cities. Into these we 
cannot go now. The story most generally believed by the 
Romans themselves was that Rome was founded by RoinuhiSy 
a son or descendant oi^neas (in Greek Aineias), one of the 
Trojan heroes who was said to have escaped after the taking 
of Troy, and to have taken refuge in Italy. But Romulus or 
Ronius is merely one of those names which were made up 
because people fancied that every city and nation must have 
taken its name from some man. The tales about the 
foundation of Rome and about its early Kings are mere 
legends which cannot be trusted. There can be little doubt 
that Rome was at first a city of the Latins, founded on the 
river Tiber as a Latin outpost to guard the march or border 
against the Etruscans on the other side of the river. And 



54 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

there seems reason to believe that hard by the Latin town of 
Rome was the Sabine town of Curiuyn, and that the two towns 
made a league, and that their people gradually became two 
tribes in one city, instead of two distinct cities. Even if this 
tale should not be true, it is at least very well made up. For 
it sets forth the way in which Rome became the greatest of 
all cities, namely by constantly granting its citizenship both 
to its allies and to its conquered enemies. Step by step, the 
people of Latium, of Italy, and of the whole civilized world, 
all became Ro?nans. This is what really distinguishes the 
Roman history from all other history, and it is what made the 
power of Rome so great and lasting. 

6. The Roman Kings. — There can be little doubt that 
Rome, like the Greek cities, was at first governed by Kings, 
who ruled by the help of a Senate and an Assembly of the 
People. But the Roman Kings, unlike those in Greece, were 
not hereditary, nor were they even chosen from any particular 
family. It is said, and it is not at all unlikely, that the old 
rule was to choose the King in turn from the Romans of Rome 
and from the Quirites of Curium. The legend giv^s us the 
names of seven Kings, and it is most likely that the two or 
three last names on the list are those of real persons. These 
are the dynasty of the Tarquinii, about whom there have 
been many opinions, but who most likely were Etruscans, and 
who seem to have adorned Rome with buildings and works 
of Etruscan art. At all events they greatly extended the 
power of Rome, so that she became the greatest of all Latin 
cities. The last King, Lucius Tarquinius^ called Supe7'-bus or 
the Proud, is said to have acted as a cruel tyrant, and to 
have had no regard for the laws of the Kings who had gone 
before him. He was accordingly driven out with his family, 
and the Romans determined to have no mare Kings, and they 
ever after hated the very name of King. This is said to have 
happened B.C. 510, about the same time when the Tyrant 



III.] THE ROMAN KINGS. 55 

Hippias son of Peisistratos was driven out of Athens. There 
can be no doubt that the driving out of the Kings of Rome 
is a real event, but, as we have no accounts of it written at 
the time or for ages after, we cannot be certain as to the 
details of the story or as to the exact time when it happened. 
7. The Roman Commonwealth. — The Roman history is, 
for want of contemporary accounts, very uncertain for a 
long time after the driving out of the Kings. Much of 
what commonly passes for Roman history is really made 
up of legends, which are often most beautiful as legends, 
but which still are not history. Much of it also comes 
from what is worse than legends, namely, mere inventions in 
honour of Rome or of some particular Roman family. We 
must wait for two hundred years and more after the Kings 
before we come to history of which we can fully trust the 
details. Still we can make out something, both as to the 
internal constitution of Rome and as to the steps by which 
she made her way to the headship of Italy. The chief thing 
to be remembered is that Rome was a city bearing rule over 
other cities. The government of the Roman commonwealth 
was the government of a city ; and so it always remained, 
even after Rome had come to be the head of Italy and even 
of the world. When the Kings were driven out, the powers 
which had belonged to the Kings were entrusted to two 
magistrates, who were at first called FrcBtors and afterwards 
Consuls^ and who were chosen for one year only. The Senate 
and the Assembly of the People went on much as they had 
done under the Kings, but soon after the Kings were driven 
out there began to be great dissensions within the Roman 
Commonwealth. For there was a very old division of the 
Roman people into Patricians and Plebeians or Commons, of 
whom the Patricians for a long time kept all the chief powers 
of the state in their own hands. Most likely the Patricians 
were the descendants of the first citizens, and the Plebeians 



56 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap, 

were tiie descendants of allies or subjects who had been after- 
wards admitted to the franchise. This division must have 
begun in the time of the Kings, as it began to be of great 
importance v^xy soon after they were driven out. At first 
the Consuls and other magistrates were chosen from among 
the Patricians or old citizens only, though the Plebeians 
voted in choosing them. There were long disputes between 
the two orders, as the privileges of the Patricians were 
felt to be very oppressive, and gradually the Plebeians 
obtained the right to be chosen to the consulship and other 
high dignities. The first plebeian Consul was Lucius 
Sexiius in B.C. 366, about the time when Epameinondas was 
warring in Peloponnesos. After this the two orders were 
gradually reconciled, and many of the greatest men in the 
later history of Rome were Plebeians. 

8. Wars of Rome with her Neighbours. — At the time 
when the kingly government of Rome came to an end, she 
was strong enough to make a treaty with Carthage^ in which 
she contracts, not only on her own behalf, but also on that of 
all the Latin cities of the coast as her subjects or depen- 
dent allies. But she seems to have lost a good deal of her 
power after the Kings were driven out. Her chief enemies 
were the Etruscans on the one side of her, and the 
various Oscan nations, especially those called the JEquians 
and Volscians, on the other. With the Latin cities she was 
for a long time in close alliance, Rome, as a single city, being 
one party to the treaty, and the other Latin cities, as a 
League, being the other party. About B.C. 396 Rome greatly 
extended her power by the conquest of Veii, the nearest of 
the great Etruscan cities. This was taken by Marcus Furius 
Camillus, who was then Dictator; that is, he was invested for 
six months only with greater powers than the Consuls them- 
selves, as was often done in times of special danger and diffi- 
culty. But soon after this the Roman power received a grea^ 



III.] ITALIAN WARS OF ROME. 57 



check, for in B.C. 390 the Romans were defeated at the river 
Allia by the Gauls, who, it will be remembered, held most of 
the northern part of what is now called Italy. They were 
now pressing southward, and invaded Etruria. The city of 
Rome itself was taken, but the Gauls were soon either driven 
out or paid to go away, and it is wonderful how soon Rome 
got over this great blow. And from this time the Roman 
history becomes somewhat more trustworthy, for we at all 
events have the lists of the Consuls and other magistrates, 
even though there is still much falsehood and exaggeration 
in our accounts of their actions. The Romans had still to 
withstand several invasions of the Gauls, and they had 
many wars with their neighbours, in which, on the whole, 
they went on increasing their territory, and ever and 
anon admitting those whom they conquered to their own 
citizenship. 

9. The Roman Conquest of Italy. — At last, about B.C. 343, 
there, began a series of greater wars in Italy, in which the 
Romans may truly be said to have been fighting for the do- 
minion of the whole land. And in the space of about sixty 
years they gradually won it. The Sainnifes, an Oscan nation, 
were now the chief people in the South of Italy, a brave and 
stout people, quite able to contend with the Romans on equal 
terms. The first war with the Samnites did not last long, 
and it was followed in 340 by a war between Rome and her 
old allies the Latins. The Latins wished for a more com- 
plete union with Rome and for one of the Consuls to be 
always a Latin ; but to this the Romans would not agree. 
The end of the war was that the Latin League was broken 
up and 1 he cities were merged in the Roman state one by 
one. Then, in 326, began a second Samnite War which 
lasted eighteen years, and a third which lasted from 298 to 
290. In these two latter wars the Samnites were helped by 
the Etruscans and Gauls, but all wer4 gradually subdue^ 



58 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

and by the year 282 Rome was pretty well mistress of all 
Italy except some of the Greek cities in the South. 

10. The Italian States under Rome. — The condition of the 
Italian states under the Roman dominion was very various, 
but we may say that the free people of Italy now formed 
^. three main classes, T?^';;?^^;^?^, Latins., and Italians. Many of 
the allied and conquered states were altogether merged in 
Rome at a very early time, their people becoming Romans 
and forming tribes in the Roman Assembly. Rome in the end 
gradually admitted all the people of Italy to her own citizen- 
ship. But, till an Italian city which was subject to Rome 
received the Roman citizenship, its people had no voice at all 
in the general government, in choosing the magistrates, or in 
matters of peace and war. And, after such a city received 
the Roman citizenship, the only way in which its citizens 
could influence such matters was by themselves going to Rome 
and giving their votes in the Roman Assembly. This should 
be carefully borne in mind throughout, as it was the natural 
consequence of the Roman government always being the 
government of a city. Among the states whose people did 
not at once become Romans, some had the Latin franchise, 
as it was called, the franchise which was at first given to the 
cities of Latium and afterwards to others in different parts. 
This did not give full Roman citizenship, but it made it much 
easier to obtain it. Lastly, the Italians or Allies kept their 
own independent constitutions in all internal matters, but 
they had to follow the lead of Rome in all matters of peace 
and war. Thus it was that the Roman dominion in Italy 
was a dominion of a city over cities. 

1 1. The War with Pyrrhos. — We now come to the beginning 
of the wars of Rome with the nations out of Italy, beginning 
with one in which they had to fight for their nev/ly won 
dominion in Italy itself. Soon after the Reman power had 
reached into Southern Italy, the people of the Greek city of 



III. J TVAjR with PYRRHOS. 59 

Taras or Tarentum contrived to offend the Romans, and they 
then asked 7^jrr^<3j, King of Epeiros,to come and help them 
as the champion of a Greek city threatened by Barbarians. 
Pyrrhos came over in 281, and the Romans had now to try 
their strength against a way of fighting quite different from 
their own, and that under the most famous warrior of the age. 
Pyrrhos was joined by some of the lately conquered nations 
in Southern Italy, who were glad of a chance of throwing off 
the Roman yoke. He defeated the Romans in two battles, 
but with so much loss on his own side that he was glad to 
make a truce and to go over into Sicily, where some of the 
Greek cities had asked him to help them against the Cartha- 
giniatis. In 276 he came back to Italy, but in the next year 
he was defeated at Beneventum and left Italy altogether 
In the next few years the small part of Italy which still held 
out against Rome was subdued. 

12. Carthage. — Rome was now mistress of Italy, and she 
soon began to be entangled in wars beyond its boundaries. The 
greatest power besides Rome in the western Mediterranean 
lands was the city of Carthage on the north coast of Africa. 
This, as we have already said, was a PhcEtiician city, one of 
the colonies of the older Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon. 
Carthage, like Rome, was a city bearing rule over other cities ; 
for she had gained a certain headship over the other Phoenician 
cities in Africa, much as Rome had over the Latin and other 
cities in Italy. And besides the kindred Phoenician cities, 
Carthage bore rule also over many of the native tribes 
whom the Phoenician settlers found in Africa. And, unlike 
Rome up to this time, she had, as trading cities and countries 
always strive to have, large dominions beyond the sea. Car- 
thage at this time bore rule over the islands of Sardinia and 
Corsica, and she had also large possessions in Sicily. But in 
Sicily a constant warfare was kept up between the Phoenician 
and the Greek settlements, in which the Tyrants who at dif« 



6o THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

ferent times reigned in Syracuse specially distinguished them- 
selves. Such were Gelon, who reigned at the time of the Per- 
sian War, Dionysios^ who reigned at the time of the war be- 
tween Sparta and Thebes, and Agathokles^ who lived in the 
time of Pyrrhos. As Tyrants in their own city, these men 
did many evil things ; still they deserve some honour as 
champions of the Greek nation against the Phoenicians. 
These wars also bring out another point of difference between 
Carthage and Rome. For, while the Romans waged their wars 
by the hands of their own citizens and allies, the wars of 
Carthage were mainly carried on by barbarian mercenaries, 
that is, soldiers serving simply for pay, whom they hired from 
Gaul, Spain, Africa, anywhere in short. A state which does 
this can never hold up for good against one which uses native 
armies; and it is a sign of the great wealth and power of 
Carthage, helped still more by a few very great men who 
appeared among her citizens, that Carthage could hold up so 
long as she did. Carthage had indeed one other great advan- 
tage, namely that, as a trading city, she was very strong by 
sea, while the Romans had as yet had hardly anything to do 
with naval affairs. Thus Carthage and Rome were the two 
great states of the West, and it could hardly fail but that war 
should spring up between them about something. And it 
was the more likely, as the island of Sicily lay between them, 
where the Carthaginians had large possessions, and where the 
Greek cities were closely connected with the Greek subjects 
of Rome in Southern Italy. 

13. The First Punic War.— A cause of quarrel was soon 
found in the disputes among the different towns in Sicily. 
Rome, as the head of Italy, undertook to protect the Mainer- 
tineSj a body of Campanian mercenaries who had seized the 
town of Messene on the strait. Their enemies were Hieron, 
King of Syrac2ise — for those who were formerly called Tyrants 
now called themselves Kings — and Carthage, Thus arose the 



•III.] THE PUNIC WARS. 6i 

first Punic War, so called from the Latin form of the name 
Phoetiician. This war went on between Carthage and Rome 
for twenty-four years, beginning in B.C. 264, and Hieron had 
soon to change the Carthaginian alliance for the Roman. 
During so long a time the two great cities contended with 
very varied success, the war being chiefly carried on in 
and about Sicily, though at one time the Roman Consul 
Marcus Atilius Regulus, who is one of the most famous 
heroes of Roman legend, carried the war into Africa. For a 
long time the Carthaginians had greatly the advantage at 
sea ; but gradually the Romans came to be their match at 
their own weapons^ and at last a great naval victory was 
won by the Consul Cuius Lutatius Caizilus, which made the 
Carthaginians ask for peace. The First Punic War ended 
in B.C. 241. 

14. Beginning of the Roman Provinces. — This victory over 
the Carthaginians was the beginning of a new state of things, 
and gave Rome quite a new class of subjects. For, when 
peace was made, Carthage had to give up her possessions 
in Sicily, and the island, except the part which belonged 
to Hieron, became a Roman province. This was the be- 
ginning of the Roman provinces, that is the dominions of 
Rome out of Italy. Their condition was much worse than 
that of the Italian allies, for the provinces were ruled by 
Roman governors, and had to pay tribute to Rome. The 
Provincials in fact were mere subjects, while the Italians, 
though dependent allies, were still Allies. Though they were 
bound to serve in the Roman armies and to follow Rome in 
all matters of war and peace, they still kept their old consti- 
tutions and no Roman governors were sent to rule them. 

15. The Second Punic or Hannibalian War. — Twenty- 
three years passed between the end of the first Punic War 
and the beginning of the second. But in the meanwhile 
the Romans got possession rather unfairly^ of the islands of 



62 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

Sardi?tia and Corsica, which Carthage had kept by the peace. 
On the other hand a Carthaginian dominion was growing up 
in Spain under Haniilcar Bai^kas, one of the greatest men that 
Carthage ever reared, his son-in-law Hasdrudal, and his son 
Hannibal, the greatest man of all, and probably the greatest 
general that the world ever saw. Another quarrel arose 
between Carthage and Rome, when Hannibal took the Spanish 
town of Sagunhtm, which the Romans claimed as an ally. 
War began in 218, and Hannibal carried it on by invading 
Italy by land. This was one of the most famous enterprises 
in all history. Never was Rome so near destruction as in 
the war with Hannibal. He crossed the Alps and defeated 
the Romans in four battles, the greatest of which was that of 
Cannce in B.C. 216. Many of the Italian allies revolted 
against Rome, and the war went on in Italy till B.C. 203. By 
that time the Romans had taken Syracuse, which, after 
Hieron's death, had forsaken their alliance, so that all Sicily 
was now a Roman province. They had also, while Hannibal 
was in Italy, conquered the Carthaginian possessions in Spain. 
Lastly, the Roman general who had been so successful in 
Spain, Publins Cornelius Scipio, crossed over into Africa, so 
that Hannibal had to leave Italy and go back to defend Car- 
thage itself. He was defeated by Scipio in the battle of 
Zama in B.C. 202. Peace was now made, Carthage giving 
up all her possessions out of Africa, and binding herself not 
to make war without the consent of the Romans. That is 
to say, Carthage now became a dependent ally of Rome. 
The Semitic races could no longer dispute the dominion of 
Jhe Mediterranean lands with the Aryans. 

16. The Third Punic War. — The last war with Carthage 
began about fifty years after the second. The Carthaginians 
were always at variance with their neighbour Massinissa 
King of Niiviidici, who had been an useful ally of Rome in 
the former war. The Romans constantly favoured Massi- 



III.] CONQUEST OF CARTHAGE, 63 

nissa, and in B.C. 149 war broke out again between Rome 
and Carthage. Three years later Carthage was taken by the 
younger Scipio, Publiiis Cor7ielms Scipio ^milianus ; the 
city was destroyed ; part of its territory was given to Massi- 
nissa, and part became the Roman province of Africa This 
is an example of the way in which Rome advanced step by 
step. By the Fust Punic war Carthage lost territory, but it 
remained quite independent. The Second made it a dependent 
ally of Rome, but left it free in its internal government. The 
Third destroyed the city and made the country a province. 
It is perhaps hardly needful to say that Africa, as the name 
of a Roman province, does not mean the whole continent, 
but only the immediate territory of Carthage. 

17. The First Macedonian War. — We see the same way 
of advancing step by step in the next great conquest made 
by Rome, which was going on at the same time as the Punic 
Wars. This was the conquest oi Macedonia and Greece. Many 
things were beginning to bring the Romans and the Greeks 
together, and, when any people began to have anything to do 
with Rome, however friendly their dealings might be at first, 
it always ended in the other nation being sooner or later 
Swallowed up in the Roman dominion. The Romans already 
had Greek subjects in Italy and Sicily. They were now 
beginning to know something of the language and literature 
of Greece, and to imitate them in writings of their own. For 
it is about this time that the Roman literature which we now 
have begins. The Romans now began to have dealings with 
the Greeks in Greece itself ; but their first dealings were quite 
friendly. A war broke out with Illyria in B.C. 229, which ended 
in the island of Korkyra and the cities of Apollonia and 
Epidamnos submitting to Rome. These were Greek cities 
on the Illyrian coast, and they welcomed the Romans as 
deliverers. But Rome had now got possession on the Greek 
side of the ^gjean, and the conquest of those lands had 



64 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

really begun. In 215 Philip King of Macedonia made a 
league with Hannibal, and in 213 the First Macedonian War 
began, while the second Punic War was still going on. 
In this war Philip was helped by the Leagues of Achaia^ 
Akarnania, and Epeiros, while Rome found allies in the 
League of ALtolia^ in Attalos King of Pergamos in Asia, 
and Nabis Tyrant of Sparta. Since the fall of Kleomenes 
Sparta had been in a state of great confusion, and she had 
had several wars with the Achaians, in which Philopoimen^ 
the last great general of Greece, greatly distinguished him- 
self. Peace was at last made in 205, and some changes of 
frontier were made ; but the chief result of the war was that 
Rome had now begun steadily to interfere in Greek and 
Macedonian affairs. 

18. The Second Macedonian War. — The first war with 
Macedonia did not affect the position of that kingdom, or of 
any other of the Greek states, as independent powers. The 
Second Macedonian War, which began in B.C. 200, marks 
another stage in the progress of conquest. The Romans 
now stepped in to help the Athenians, who were their allies, 
and who had been attacked by Philip. The ^tolians to ok the 
Roman side from the beginning, and the Achaians joined 
them in 198. In 197 the war was ended by the defeat ol 
Phihp at Kynoskephale in Thessaly, and the next year, 196, 
the Roman Consul Titus Quinctius Flamininus proclaimed 
the liberty of all those parts of Greece which had been under 
his power. Philip thus lost a large part of his territory, and 
had to become a dependent ally of Rome. And from this 
time we may count the Greek allies of Rome, though nomi- 
nally free, as practically dependent. 

19. The Conquest of ^tolia. — The jEtoUans now invited 
the Seleukid King Antiochos the Great to cross over from 
Asia and attack the Romans in Greece. He crossed over in 
192, and several Greek states joined him, but the Achaians 



III.] THE MACEDONIAN WARS. 65 

held steadily to Rome. In 191 Antiochos was defeated at 
Thej'mopylai by the Consul Manius Acilius GlabrOj and his 
allies the ^tolians were presently, in 189, obliged to become 
a Roman dependency, being the first within the borders of 
Greece itself. Rome also took the islands of Zakynthcs and 
Kephallenia^ and the Achaian League was extended over all 
Peloponnesos. Rome was now really mistress of Greece, and 
Grecian history from this time consists mainly of her dealings 
with the states which had become practically her subjects. 

20. The Third Macedonian War. — The Third Macedonian 
W^^r, waged with Perseus the son of Philip, began in 171. 
Most of the Greek states were now on the Macedonian side, 
as it had become plain that Rome was much more dangerous 
than Macedonia. But the Achaians remained allies of Rome, 
though they were from this time treated with great insolence. 
The war ended with the victory of Lucius JEmilius Paullus 
at Pydna in 168. The Macedonian kingdom was now cut up 
into four commonwealths, all dependencies of Rome. Epeiros 
was subdued and most of its cities destroyed. 

21. Final Conquest of Macedonia and Greece. — TheFourth 
Macedonian War happened at exactly the same time as the 
Third Punic War, in 149. The Macedonians rose under one 
Andriskos, who called himself Philip, and gave himself out as 
the son of Perseus. He was successful for a time, but he 
was overthrown in 148, and Macedonia, after so many stages, 
at last became a Roman province. There were also many dis- 
putes between Rome and Achaia, which now grew into a war, 
and in 146 the Achaians were defeated by Lucius Mumjnius, 
and Corinth was destroyed in the same year as Carthage. The 
League was dissolved for a while, and the Achaian cities 

. became formally dependent on Rome. But Athens and 
several other Greek cities and islands still remained nomi- 
nally independent. The history of these times was written 
by Polybiosx a leading man in the Achaian League, but who, 

F 



66 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 



being a prisoner at Rome, formed a close friendship with the 

youngei' Scipio and other chief Romans. He was thus able 

to look with his own eyes at two different stages of the 

world's history in a way that perhaps no one else ever could. 

22. The Romans in Asia. — Macedonia and Greece formed 

easy stepping-stones for the Romans to meddle in the affairs 

of Asia. By far the greatest of the Macedonian kingdoms 

in Asia was that of the descendants of Seleukos^ which for 

a while took in all Alexander's conquests in Asia. But this 

great dominion was cut short in the East about B.C. 256 

by the revolt of the Parthians in Northern Persia. They 

established a kingdom under the descendants of their first 

leader Ashk or Arsakes, which in after times was the chiet 

rival of Rome. The eastern provinces of the Seleukid Kings 

thus fell away one by one, but at the time of the Second 

Punic War they still reigned from the JEgsesLn to far beyond 

the Tigris, But it must be remembered that there were 

several states in Western Asia, both native and Macedonian, 

like the kingdoms of Pergamos and Bithynia, which did not 

form part of their dominion. All these states were more or 

less tinged with Greek culture. We have already seen how 

Antiochos, called the Great, had crossed over into Greece 

and had been there defeated by the Romans. The Romans 

of course then crossed into Asia, and Antiochos was defeated 

by Luciits Scipio at Magnesia in 189. Antiochos had now to 

give up all his dominions west of Mount Tauros, and the 

great dominion of the Seleukid Kings shrank up into a mere 

Kingdom of Syria. But their capital Antioch on the Orontes 

still remained one of the chief seats of Greek culture, and one 

of the greatest cities of the world. The Romans now became 

really masters of all Western Asia, though, after their manner, 

they did not -as yet formally take any part of the land to 

themselves. What Antiochos gave up they divided among 

their allies, giving the largest share to Eumenh King of Per* 



III.] CONQUESTS IN ASIA. 67 

gamos. The kingdom of Eumenes thus became the greatest 
state in Western Asia, and his capital, hke Antioch, became 
a great seat of Greek culture and learning. And a little later 
the cities of Lykia joined together in a free and most wisely 
managed Confederation, much after the pattern of the Achaian 
League. But from this time Pergamos, Lykia, and all these 
Macedonian or Hellenized states looked up to Rome, just as 
the Greeks in Greece itself had already learned to do. At last 
in 133 Attalos^ the last King of Pergamos, left his dominions 
to the Roman People, and the greater part of them were 
made into a Roman province, by the narne of the Province of 
Asia, the first province that Rome held beyond the yEgsean. 
23. The Romans in Western Europe. Conquest of Cis- 
alpine Gaul. — In all these wars with Carthage, Macedonia, 
and Syria Rome had to struggle with enemies who met her 
on something like equal terms. All were civilized states, and 
the Macedonian Kings, both in Macedonia and in Asia, had 
kept up the mihtary discipline of Philip and Alexander, 
"We must now see how Rome dealt with the people of the 
West, the forefathers of some of the chief nations of modern 
Europe, but who then were only brave barbarians. Her first 
conquest among these was naturally that of those lands within 
the Alps which are now reckoned part of Italy, but which 
were then known as Cisalpiite Gaul. The Gauls, it will be 
remembered, had once taken Rome itself, and they had shown 
themselves dangerous enemies to Rome by helping the Sam- 
nites and Etruscans against her. It was no wonder then 
that the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul began almost as soon as 
the conquest of Italy was over. The lands south of the Po 
were won before the First Punic War, and in the time between 
the First and the Second Punic Wars the conquest went on, 
and several colonies were planted beyond the Po. The Gauls 
greatly helped Hannibal in his invasion of Italy, but they 
presently paid dearly for so doing. For, as soon as the 

F 2 



68 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 



Second Punic War was over, the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul 
went on, and was ended by about 191. The land was now full 
of Roman and Latin colonies, and it soon became a Roman 
land and began to be reckoned part of Italy. Liguria and 
Venetia were conquered soon afterwards, so that the Roman 
power took in all within the Alps, all that we now call Italy. 

24. The Conquest of Spain. — Meanwhile the third and 
most western of the three great peninsulas, that of Spain, was 
being added, like Greece and the neighbouring countries, to 
the Roman dominion. Spain was the only one of the great 
countries of Europe where the mass of the people were not 
of the Aryan stock. The greater part of the land was still 
held by the Iberians, as a small part is even now by their 
descendants the Basques. But in the central part of the 
peninsula Celtic tribes had pressed in, and we have seen 
that there were some Phoenician colonies in the south and 
some Greek colonies on the east coast. In the time between 
the First and Second Punic Wars Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, and 
Hannibal had won all Spain as far as the Ebro for Carthage. 
But during the Second Punic War, between the years 211 
and 206, the Carthaginian territories in Spain were all won 
for Rome by the Scipios. Rome thus became the chief power 
in Spain, even before the Second Punic War was over, and 
before she had conquered all Cisalpine Gaul. But Spain has 
always been a hard country to conquer, and the Romans 
had constant wars with the native tribes. Still we may look 
on the Roman dominion in Spain as finally established in 
B.C. 133, when the younger Scipio took Numantia. This, it 
will be remembered, was in the same year as the bequest 
of Attalos which gave Rome her first Asiatic possession, and 
Numantia was taken by the same general who had taken 
Carthage. From this time all Spain was a Roman province, 
except some of the mountainous parts in the north, where 
native tribes still remained free. 



III.] CONQUESTS IN SPAIN AND GAUL. 69 

25, Beginning of the Conquest of Transalpine Gaul. — 
The conquests of Rome in Transalpine Gaul, Gaul beyond 
the Alps, began a little later. Gaul in the geographical 
sense, the land between the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, 
and the Ocean, was then, as now, peopled by different races, 
speaking different languages. In the south the old non- Aryan 
inhabitants still held their ground. The districts near the 
Alps were chiefly held by Ligurians, while Aquitai?ie, a name 
which then meant the land between the Pyrenees and the 
Garonne, was Iberian. In the centre the Aryan Celts had 
settled, but the next wave, the Teutons, were most likely 
already pressing upon them, though when our kinsfolk first 
crossed the Rhine it would be hard to say. The Mediter- 
ranean coast of Gaul was fringed by that group of Greek 
cities of which Massalia was the head. Massalia was a great 
trading city, and it became an ally, at first a really equal 
and independent ally, of Rome. This was in 218, at the 
beginning of the Second Punic War. The Romans had once 
or twice to cross the Alps to defend their Greek allies, and 
at last, in 125, a V^oim.'axi province was formed in Transalpine 
Gaul, in the land which has ever since kept the name of Pro- 
vence. At the same time the colony of Aqucz Sextice, now 
Aix, was founded. As usual, the Roman dominions advanced, 
and twenty years later the Roman province reached as far as 
Geneva to the north and Tolosa or Toulouse to the west. 

26, The Cimbri and Teutones. — It is not unlikely that the 
Romans would now have gone on and conquered the whole 
of Gaul, if an event had not happened which put a stop for 
some time to their further progress in those parts. For about 
this time Gaul was invaded by a vast host of barbarians called 
Cimbri and Tetttones, who came from the North, but about 
whom there has been much doubt whether they really were 
of Celtic or of what we call Teutonic race. They defeated 
several Roman commanders in Gaul, but in 102 the Teutones 



70 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

were utterly defeated by the Consul Caius Marius near 
Aqucz Sextics, and in the next year the war was finished by 
the two Consuls Marius and Quinfiis LtUatius Catulus over- 
throwing the Ciinbri also at Vercella in Cisalpine Gaul, This 
was the same sort of danger from which Rome had been saved 
long before by Camillus, the danger of being overthrown, not 
by the chief of a civilized people like Pyrrhos or Hannibal, but 
by a people who were still altogether barbarous. If any 
men of our own race had a hand in this invasion, it gives it a 
special interest for us ; but, at all events, as saving Rome 
from this great danger, the defeat of the invaders was 
one of the greatest events in Roman history, and Caius 
Marius is one of Rome's most famous men. But, fully to 
understand the condition of Rome, and especially to under- 
stand the position of Marius, we must look back a little at the 
state of things in Italy while these great conquests were going 
on abroad. It will however be better to keep the details ot 
the internal affairs of Rome, as far as may be, for the special 
History of Rome, and to spe-ak chiefly of those things which 
concern the relations of Rome to her allies and subjects. 

27. Rome and her Allies. — We have thus seen that, in 
the space of about two hundred years, from the beginning of 
the Samnite Wars to the conquest of Numantia and the 
inheritance of the Province of Asia, Rome had come to be 
the mistress of all the lands round the Mediterranean Sea. 
The whole was not as yet fully annexed and made into 
provinces, but no power was left which had the least chance 
of holding out against Rome. The only great power with 
which Rome had had no war was the kingdom of Egypt 
There the descendants of the first Piolemy, all of whom 
bore his name, still reigned, and Egypt was the richest 
and most flourishing of the Macedonian kingdoms, and its 
capital Alexandria was the greatest seat of Greek learning 
and science. But when the Romans began to be powerful in 



in.] ROME AND HER ALLIES. 71 

Asia, even the Ptolemies, who often had wars with the Seleu- 
kids, began to look to Rome as a protector. It was this 
vast dominion, while it made Rome so great in the face of 
other nations, which led to the corruption of her constitution 
within, and at last to the utter loss of her freedom. The 
form of government which had done so well for a single city 
with a small territory did not do at all for the government 
of so large a portion of the world. Throughout the Roman 
dominions the Roman People was sovereign ; the Assembly of 
the People made laws and chose magistrates for Rome itself, 
and sent out generals and governors to conquer and rule 
in the subject lands. The provincials^ and even the allies, 
had no voice in settling the affairs of the vast dominion of 
which they had become a part, and they were often greatly 
oppressed by the Roman officers. Meanwhile in Rome 
itself the great offices had been gradually thrown open to the 
Plebeians as well as the Patj'icians, and hardly any legal 
distinction was left between the two orders. The constitution 
was therefore really democratic j for the sovereign power lay 
in the Assembly of the whole People, which made the laws 
and chose the magistrates. And in choosing the magistrates 
they also indirectly chose the Senate, as it was mainly made 
up of men who had held the different magistracies. Still 
the constitution had a great tendency to become practically 
aristocratic. For the men who had held great offices, whether 
patricians or plebeians, began to form a class by themselves, 
and their descendants, who were now called nobles, began 
to think that they only had a right to hold the offices which 
their forefathers had held. Then again the old citizens of 
Rome were largely cut off in the endless wars, and mdiiiy /reed- 
men — that is, men who had been slaves — and strangers got 
the citizenship, so that the character of the Roman People 
was greatly lowered. And, as every citizen who wished to 
vote had to come to Rome in his own person, the Roman 



72 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

Assembly had become far too large, and gradually turned 
into a mere mob. Then again many citizens were wretchedly 
poor, while rich men had made themselves great estates out 
of the land which rightly belonged to the commonwealth. 
Thus, instead of the old political strife between patricians 
and plebeians.^ there had come, what Avas a great deal worse, 
a social strife between the rich and the poor. While Rome 
had still powerful enemies to strive against, these evils did 
not make themselves so much felt ; but, when Rome had 
nothing more to fear, they began to be very glaring, and men 
had to seek for remedies for them. And, along with all this, 
the Italian states, which had not been raised to Roman 
citizenship but which had borne a great part in the wars of 
Rome, now demanded to be made Romans. The cause ot 
the poor against the rich was taken up by Tiberius Seinpro- 
nius Gracchus, in the year 133 ; and the cause both of the 
poor and of the allies was taken up by his brother Caius in 
123. But both of them were murdered by the oligarchs, who 
wished to keep all power and wealth in their own hands. 

28. The Social War. — After the death of the Gracchi the 
ill will between the nobles and the people, and the further ill 
will between the Romans and the Italians, still went on. 
The next great leader of the popular party was Caius Marius^ 
of whom we have already heard as the conqueror of the 
Teutones. He was not of any high family, but was born at 
Arpinum, an old town of the Volscians, whose people did 
not obtain the full Roman citizenship till 188. His sympa- 
thies therefore lay with the people against the oligarchs, and 
still more with the Italians against either the nobles or the 
mob of Rome. He was an excellent soldier, and first began 
to distinguish himself in the war with Jugurtha, who had 
usurped the kingdom of Numidia, whose King Massinissa 
had been so useful to Rome in the Punic War. This war 
began in iii, and in 106 Marius brought the war to an end 



III.] THE SOCIAL WAR. 73 

and led Jugurtha in triumph. Very soon after came the inva- 
sion of the Cimbri and Teutones and Marius' great success 
against them. He was now the chief man in Rome and 
the leader of the popidar party. But the complaints of the 
Italians still went on, and in the year 90 most of them rose 
in arms. This was called the Social War, that is the war 
with the Socii or Allies of Rome. It was ended in the 
course of the n€xt year by all the allies, except the Samiutes 
and Lucanians in the south of Italy, submitting and being 
made Roman citizens. The Samnites, whom it had cost 
Rome so much trouble to conquer two hundred years before, 
still held out. Marius held a command in this war, and so 
did Lucius Cornelizts Sulla, who had been his lieutenant in 
the war with Jugurtha ; but Marius did little or nothing, and 
went far to lose his old credit, while Sulla showed himself 
the rising man of Rome. Presently a Civil War, the first 
in Roman history, broke out between Marius and Sulla, in 
which the Social War, which had never quite come to an 
end, merged itself. At one stage of this war Sertoritis, a 
Roman general on the Marian side, held Spain almost as a 
separate power, having a Senate of his own, which he said 
was the real Roman Senate. In 83 Sulla came back from 
his wars in the East, of which we shall speak directly, and 
the Samnites, who had never laid down their arms, joined 
with the Marian party, and began openly to declare that 
Rome must be destroyed. Rome had never been in such 
danger since quite the old times, and there can be no doubt 
that Sulla, who now savd Rome and crushed the Samnites 
and the Marian party, fixed the future history of the world 
far more than Csesar or anyone else who came after him. 
Sulla now took to himself the supreme power at Rome, with 
the title of Perpetual Dictator. But, when he had quite 
rooted out the Marian party, and had passed a series of laws 
to confirm the dominion of the aristocracy, he gave up his 



74 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

power, and lived as. a private man till he died soon after. 
Rome had now passed through her last trial within her own 
peninsula. The Samnites, who had withstood to the last, 
had been utterly cut off, and the other Italians had become 
Romans. 

29, The Mithridatic War. — While Rome went through this 
great trial at home, she had to undergo another almost as 
great abroad. She had to wage a war greater than any that 
she had waged since the conquest of Carthage and Mace- 
donia. One of those states in Asia Minor which had arisen, as 
was before mentioned, out of the ruins of the old Persian Em- 
pire, was PontoSj the Kingdom of the Euxine Sea — Pontes in 
Greek meaning the Sea, and specially the Euxine Sea. Its 
Kings were of native blood, but, hke all their neighbours, 
they made a certain pretence to Greek culture, and the 
acquisition of the province of Asia by the Romans made 
them neighbours of Rome. Pontes was now ruled by 
Mithridates the Sixth or the Great. A war with him broke 
out while the Social War was going on in Italy, and Mith- 
ridates succeeded in winning all Asia. He then ordered 
all the Romans and Italians who were settled in Asia to be 
massacred in one day, which the people everywhere did very 
willingly — they had made themselves so hateful. Then his 
generals, like Antiochos, crossed over into Greece, where 
many of the Greeks took his side. Sulla then, in 87, came 
into Greece, stormed Athens, won two great battles at Chai- 
roneia and Orchomenos in Boeotia, and then, being called 
home by the news of the successes of Marius, patched up 
a peace by which Mithridates gave up all his conquests. 
Such a peace was not likely to last, and, as soon as he 
had a good opportunity, Mithridates began the war again. 
This was in 74, and the second war between him and 
the Romans, first under Lucius Licinius Lucullus and then 
under Cnceus Pompeius^ called Magnus or the Great, lasted 



III. J MITHRIDATIC AND SYRIAN WARS. 75 

ten years. It ended in the overthrow of the Pontic kingdom, 
which was spht up in the usual way, and in the complete 
re-establishment of the Roman power in Asia. 

30. The Conquest of Syria. — In the history of Rome one 
conquest always led to another, and, after the overthrow of 
Mithridates, the Roman arms were carried by Pompeius 
much further towards the East than they had ever gone before. 
Tigranes, King of Armenia, who had helped Mithridates, was 
utterly humbled ; Syria, the remains of the great Seleukid 
kingdom, was partly made a Roman province, partly divided 
among dependent princes. Pompeius also took Jerusalem 
in the year 63, and Palestine was henceforth under the Roman 
power, though it was often held by vassal Kings, like the 
Herods in the New Testament. The Roman power now 
reached from the Ocean to the Euphrates, and the Roman 
Commonwealth may now be looked on as having taken the 
place of Alexander and his successors in Asia, as the cham- 
pions of the West against the East. But each increase of 
dominion laid it open to fresh enemies. The Parthian Kings 
became formidable enemies, and indeed rivals, of Rome. 
We shall hear a great deal of the wars and other deahngs 
between Rome and Parthia. But the first attempt of the 
Romans against Parthia, which was made by Marcus Lici- 
nius Crassus in the year 54, was utterly unsuccessful. Crassus 
was defeated and killed, and the more part of his army were 
made prisoners. 

31. State of Things at Rome.— Meanwhile it was being 
shown more and more how unfit the government of the 
single city of Rome was to rule all Italy and the world. New 
discontents arose out of the admission of the Jtahans to 
the Roman citizenship, and the commonwealth was torn in 
pieces by the disputes of the leading men. We now come 
to the famous men of the last days of the Commonwealth, 
■—Pompeius and Crassus, of whom we have already heard, 



76 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

Marcus Tullius Cicero the great orator, Marcus Porcius 
Cato, and the most famous of all, Caius Julius Cczsar. We 
shall say more of their doings at home in our special History 
of Rome. It may here be enough to say that, as far as 
natural gifts went, Caesar was perhaps the greatest man that 
ever lived, being great in all ways, equally as soldier, states- 
man, and scholar. He was of an old patrician house, but he 
was connected with the family of Marius, and he took up 
the cause of the people not honestly, like the Gracchi, but 
to serve his own ends. The whole commonwealth was now 
utterly corrupt ; still Pompeius and Cicero, though there were 
plenty of faults on their side, did strive to defend the law 
and constitution such as it was, while the Roman people had 
sunk into a mere mob, which men like C^sar could use as 
they chose. 

32. Caesar's Conquests in Gaul. — In the year 59 Cassar was 
Consul, and in the next year he went into Gaul, which had 
been given him as his province, and where he spent about 
seven years in conquering the whole of the country. Instead 
of a small part of southern Gaul, the Roman dominion now 
reached to the Rhine and the British Channel. In this war 
the Romans first began to have to do with people of our own 
race and with the land now called England. Our own 
ancestors, the English, were still in their old land by the Elbe, 
and Caesar never came near them. But there were several 
Teutonic tribes in north-eastern Gaul, and in the year 55 
Caesar crossed into Germany itself, but he did not conquer 
any part of the land. In the same year 55, and again in 54, 
he crossed over into Britain, but he made no lasting conquest 
and left no Roman troops behind him. Britain was then 
inhabited "By a Celtic people, the Britons, who gave their 
name to the island, and whom our forefathers, when they 
came into Britain long after, called the Welsh or strangers. 
Both the German and the British expeditions were made 



in.] CONQUESTS OF CAiSAR. 77- 

rather to show the power of Rome than to make conquests 
which it would have been hard to keep. The Rhine thus 
became the boundary of the Roman province of Gaul ; that 
is to say, the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine became 
subjects of Rome, along with the Iberian and Celtic inhabi- 
tants of Gaul, while the Germans on the right bank remained 
free. This conquest of Gaul by Caesar is one of the most 
important events in the history of the world. It is in some 
sort the beginning of modern history, as it brought the old 
world of Southern Europe, of which Rome was the head, 
into contact with the lands and nations which were to play 
the greatest part in later times, with Gaul, Germany, and 
Britain. 

33. The Civil War of Pompeius and Caesar.— Caesar had 
been all this time winning fame and power in Gaul, in order 
to make himself master of his country. Things got into 
great confusion while he was aw;iy, which was just what he 
wanted. At last, in the year 49, Caesar openly rebelled, and 
another Civil War now began, Pompeius commanding the 
armies which were faithful to the Commonwealth. But now 
that the Roman dominion took in so large a part of the 
world, a civil war between Romans was not necessarily 
fought in Italy. The power of Pompeius lay chiefly in the 
lands east of the Hadriatic ; so, while he was gathering his 
forces there, C^sar marched to Rome and got the People to 
make him first Dictator and then Consul for the year 48. 
Then he crossed over to Epeiros, and presently defeated the 
army of Pompeius and the Senate at Pharsalos in Thessaly. 
Pompeius was presently murdered in Egypt, and in about 
three years' time Caesar was able to overcome all who with- 
stood him in Africa, Spain, and elsewhere. The battle of 
Pharsalos is one of the most important battles in history, as 
it really ended the Romati Co7nmo7twealth, and began the- 
Roman Empire, which we may almost say has gone on ever 



78 THE ROMAN COMMONWEALTH. [chap. 

since. The forms of the Commonwealth lasted long after, 
but from this time the Roman world always had a master. 
Caesar was now master of the Roman dominions, and was 
made Dictator for life. He was also called hnperator (the 
word which is cut short into E77tperor), a title which in 
some sort belonged to every Roman general, but which 
Caesar was allowed to use in a special way. But he was not 
satisfied with being Dictator and Iinperator ; he wished to be 
King and to wear a diadem. This was more than men could 
bear ; so many of the senators, among whom the chief were 
Caius Cassius and Marcus Junius Brutus^ conspired and 
slew him in the senate-house (March 15th, B.C. 44). Caesar 
was a Tyra7itj he had overthrown the freedom of his country 
md had seized a power beyond the laws. But it should 
not be forgotten that for the provinces it was a distinct gain 
to get one master instead of many. The real lesson to be 
learned from the overthrow of the Roman- Commonwealth is 
that states which boast themselves of their own freedom 
should not hold other states in bondage. 

34. The Second Civil War. — After the death of Csesar 
followed a time of great confusion, lasting for thirteen 
years. Brutus and Cassius, who had killed Caesar, stood 
up for the Commonwealth, and there was a war between 
them and Marcus Antoniiis, one of Caesar's officers, and 
Caesar's great-nephew, Caius Octavius. Caesar had adopted 
Octavius as his son ; so his jiame became Caius Jtilius 
CcEsar Octavianus. These two, along with Marcus j^nii- 
lius Lepidtis, formed what was called a Triu7nvirate for 
settling the affairs of the Commonwealth. Meanwhile 
Brutus and Cassius, like Pompeius, had gone to the East, 
and in 42 was fought the battle of Philippi in Macedonia 
between them and the Triumvirs, in which the hopes of 
the party of the Commonwealth were crushed. Presently 
Antonius professed to make war upon the Parthians, but 



111.] BEGINNING OF THE EMPIRE. 



79 



he did nothing great, for he was utterly bewitched by 
Klcopatra, Queen of Egypt, the last of the dynasty <5f the 
Ptolemies. War presently followed between Csesar and 
Antonius, and Antonius and Kleopatra were altogether de- 
feated in a sea-fight at Aktion, near Ambrakia, on the west 
coast of Greece (31). Antonius and Kleopatra presently 
killed themselves, and Egypt became a Roman province. 
All the lands round the Mediterranean had now come under 
the Roman dominion, though here and there there were prin- 
cipalities and commonwealths which had not been formally 
made into provinces. 

35. The Beginning of the Empire.— There was now no 
one left to withstand Caesar, and the Senate and People gra- 
dually voted him one honour and office after another, which 
made him practically master of the state, though the outward 
forms of the Commonwealth went on as before. But he was 
never called King, or even Dictator, like his uncle, for that 
title had become almost as hateful as that of King. But the 
new title of Augustus was voted to him, and all who succeeded 
him in his power called themselves Ccesar and Augustus. 
But he is specially known as Atigustus CcEsar. This is the 
beginning of the Roman Empire, for, of the various titles 
borne by Augustus and his successors, that of Emperor 
{Imperator) or chief of the army was the one which pre- 
vailed in the end. The rest of the history of Europe is the 
history of the Roman Empire in one shape or another, and 
we shall see that the title of Roman Emperor went on almost 
to our own times. The first Emperor then was Caius Julius 
C(Esar Octavianus, and we may count the Empire as beginning 
in B.C. 27, when he received the title of Augustus. The last 
Emperor was Francis, King of Germany, who gave up the 
Empire in A.D. 1806. The differences between the early and 
the later Emperors we shall see as we go on, but there was a 
continuous succession between them without any break. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE HEATHEN EMPIRE. 

Extent of the Roman Empire ; distinction of the Latin, Greek, and 
Oriental Proijinces (i) — nature of the Roma>n dominion; all the 
inhabitants of the Empire gradually become Romans (2) — reign of 
Augustus ; stealthy introdu-ction of Monarchy (3)- — zvars with the 
Germans ; victory of Arm-inius (3) — Roman Literature and Art 
(4) — the Claudian Emperors ; conquest of Britain ; the E?npire 
passes from the Ccesarian family (5) — the Flavian Emperors ; 
wars with the Jezvs, Batavians, and Dacians (6) — the Good 
Emperors ; orighi of the Roman Law (7) — Emp/erors chosen by 
the army ; distinction of Romans and Barbarians ; the Lllyrian 
Emperors (8) — the Tyrants (9) — restoration of the Kingdom of 
Persia; wars between Persia and Rome (10) — wars with the 
Teutonic nations ; first appearance of the Goths (10) — origin of. 
Christianity; its advance and persecutions (ii) — reign. of Dio- 
cletian ; his division of the Empire (12) — last persecution of the 
Christians ; Constantine embraces Christianity (12) — Summary 
(13). 

I. Extent of the Roman Empire. — At the time when the 
government of Rome was practically changed from a 
commonwealth to a monarchy, the Roman power had 
spread over all the lands which could be looked on as 
forming the civilized world. These lands fall naturally 
under three heads, the distinction between which will be 
found to be of great importance as we go on. In the 
Western provinces, as Gaul and Spain, to which we may 
add Africa, where Carthage had been restored by Caesar 
as a Roman colony, the Romans appeared, not only as a 



CHAP. IV,] EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE. 8i 



conquering, but as a civilizing people. Roman customs and 
the use of the Latin language took firm root ; the whole 
civiHzation of these lands became Roman, and the native 
tongues and customs lived on only in out-of-the-way corners, 
such as the mountain land of the Basques in Spain and 
Southern Gaul. But in Greece, and in those lands whither 
the Greek speech and customs had been carried by Greek 
colonists or by Macedonian conquerors, the Greek civiHza- 
tion, the older and the higher of the two, still held its ground. 
These lands became politically Roman, but they remained 
socially and intellectually Greek, and Greek still went on as 
the language of literature and polite life. But in the further 
East, in the lands beyond Mount Tauros, in Syria and 
Egypt, though they had been ruled by Macedonian Kings, 
and though great Greek cities had arisen as their capitals, 
the native languages and religions and general habit of 
thought never died out, nor were they driven, as in the West, 
into out-of-the-way corners. It is only in a very superficial 
sense that these lands can be said to have ever become 
either Greek or Roman. This distinction between what we 
may call the Latin, the Greek, and the Oriental provinces 
must be carefully borne in mind throughout. It was not a 
distinction made by law, but it was one which had most im- 
portant practical results. Speaking roughly, the Roman 
dominion was bounded by the Rhine, the Danube, the 
Euphrates, and the great deserts of Africa. It did not reach 
quite so far as this at the very beginning of the Empire, but 
the few outlying lands which were needed to bring it to those 
boundaries were added during the reigns of Augustus and 
the other earlier Emperors. And within those boundaries 
we may look on the Latin provinces as reaching from the 
Ocean to the Hadriatic, the Greek as reaching from the 
Hadriatic to Mount Tauros, and the Oriental as taking in 
the lands beyond. 

G 



82 THE HE A THEN EMPIRE. [chap. 

2. Nature of the Roman Dominion. — It must always be 
remembered that the establishment of the Roman Empire 
was not a formal revolution. The old republican forms 
went on in Rome, and the relations between the ruling 
city and the allied and subject states were in noway changed. 
But as the Empire, as the power of one man, became step by 
step more firmly established, the tendency was to break down 
the old distinctions. Particular families, and sometimes 
whole cities and regions, were admitted to the Roman 
franchise, till at last all the free inhabitants of the Empire 
were declared to be Roman citizens. From this time all the 
subjects of the Empire were legally equal, and all who spoke 
either Latin or Greek began to look on themselves as 
Romans. The Empire, which had once been a collection of 
cities and provinces in different degrees of subjection to one 
ruling city, gradually changed into a vast dominion, all the i 
inhabitants of which were alike fellow-subjects of the Em- / 
peror. Rome, instead of being the ruling city, thus became 
merely the capital or seat of government. And we shall see 
that, as time went on, Rome ceased even to be the seat of 
government, and other cities took its place. 

3. The Reign of Augustus. — Counting the reign of 
Auo-ustus to begin when he received that new and special 
title, it lasted forty-one years, from B.C. 27 to A.D; 14. 
During all that time he was practically master of Rome 
and of the whole Empire. He became so by the means of 
uniting various great offices in his own person, and by having 
special grants of authority made to him by the Senate for 
periods of ten years. Men thus became gradually used to 
the rule of one man, and, though all the old magistracies and 
the old forms went on, they gradually sank into mere forms. 
The legions were kept up as a standing army, and the 
government gradually became a military monarchy. Au- 
gustus however never took on himself anything of the 



IV.] REIGN OF AUGUSTUS. 83 

pomp of royalty, but behaved simply as the first magistrate 
of the commonwealth. He did not seek to make any 
great conquests ; still several wars, both successful and un- 
successful, were carried on during his reign. The small part 
of Spain which remained independent was subdued, and the 
lands south of the Damibe were all added to the Empire. 
There were also wars at this time which more concern us, for 
the two Claiidii,\hQ stepsons of Augustus, first Drusus and 
then Tiberius^ waged long wars with the Germans beyond the 
Rhine, and it was hoped that Germany would be subdued as 
well as Gaul. Had this happened, the future history of the 
world must have been utterly changed. And every one who 
speaks English or any other Teutonic tongue ought to 
honour the name of the German hero Armifzius, who in A.D. 9 
cut off three Roman legions under Publius Quinctilius Varus, 
and stopped all fear of Germany becoming a Roman pro- 
vince. Drusus had in some of his wars reached the Elbe, so 
that it is quite likely that he may have come across some of 
our own forefathers. 

4. Roman Literature and Art. — The reign of Augustus is 
also famous as the time when many of the best-known Latin 
writers lived. There -is nothing in the Latin language which 
at all answers to the native literature of Greece. Before 
the Punic Wars we have only a few scraps. From that time 
the existing Latin literature begins. But the Latin writers, 
especially the poets, were too much given to imitation of 
Greek models to produce anything at all equal to them. But 
there were many great Latin writers in the time of the Civil 
Wars, as Cicero and Ccesar, who were so famous in other 
ways^ and the poets Lucretius and Catullus. But the 
Augustan Age, as it is called, became specially famous for 
the number of poets, such as the well-known names of Virgil^ 
Horace, and Ovid, who lived at that time, and sang the praises 
of Augustus and of their great patron his minister Cuius 

G 2 



84 THE HE A THEN EMPIRE. [chap. 

Cilnius McEcenas. Livy also {Tihis Liviiis)^ the historian of 
Rome, Hved at this time. But both he and the greatest of 
the Augustan poets had grown up under the Commonwealth. 
Horace, for instance {Quintus Horatiiis Flacctis), had fought 
against Augustus at Philippi, having been an officer in the 
army of Brutus and Cassius. The most truly original Latin 
writers, the satirist Juvenal and the historian Tacitus, to 
whom we may fairly add the great Roman lawyers, belong to 
a later time. In the same way the Romans of this age greatly 
imitated the Greeks in their buildings and in their works of 
art generally, and it was only gradually that a really genuine 
and national form of Roman architecture was worked out. 

5. The Claudian Emperors. — As Rome was not legally a 
monarchy, it is plain that the supreme power could not pass 
at the will of the last Emperor. But the stepson of Augustus, 
Tiberius Claudius Nero, whom he had adopted, and who 
therefore became his son according to Roman law, succeeded 
without any difficulty, the Senate A^oting him all the honours 
which Augustus had held. The Empire thus passed into a 
new family, that of the Claudii. But, according to the law 
of adoption, they counted as Ccesars, and the Caesars became 
a kind of artificial family, for no Emperor at this tiijie was 
ever succeeded by his own son. Four Em.perors reigned 
by this kind of succession, Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and 
Nero. All of these were Caesars by adoption, though not 
by blood, and Caius, Claudius, and Nero were really de- 
scended from Augustus in the female line. The first of 
these four, Tiberius, reigned from A.D. 14 to a.d. 37. The 
Empire was on the whole prosperous in his time ; but he 
did many jealous and cruel things, causing the death of 
all of whom he was in any way afraid, especially of his 
nephew Germanicus, the son of Drusus, and Germanicus' 
wife Agrippina. Germanicus took his name from his 
wars in Germany^ where he advanced as far as the 



IV.] THE CLAUDIAN EMPERORS. 85 

Weser, but he was happily recalled by the jealousy of Tibe- 
rius, Caius, commonly called Caligula, the son of Ger- 
manicus, succeeded Tiberius, and reigned four years, from 
37 to 41. He seems to have been quite mad, and did the 
wildest and wickedest things in every way, and at last he 
was killed by some of his officers. The soldiers then chose 
Claudhis, the brother of Germanicus and uncle of Caius, 
and the Senate had to confirm their choice. This was the 
first time that an Emperor was chosen by the army. Claudius 
was a well-meaning man, but he was constantly led astray by 
his wives and favourites. It was in his time that the Roman 
conquest of Britain began, and Claudius himself came for 
a short time into Britain in the year 43. He reigned tiR 
54, when he was poisoned by his last wife Agrippina, who 
was the daughter of Germanicus and his own niece. She had 
made him adopt her son Nero, who then succeeded, and 
reigned well for a while, but gradually became the worst &/ 
the whole family for every form of vice and cruelty. At la^t 
the soldiers in the distant provinces began to rebel, and Nero 
was deposed by a vote of the Senate, and died by his own 
hand in the year 68. The Empire now passed quite away 
from the Caesarean family ; those who followed no longer 
pretended to belong to that family even by adoption ; yet all 
who succeeded to the Empire still went on calling themselves 
CcEsar and Augustus to the very end. 

6. The Flavian Emperors. — A time of confusion followed 
on the death of Nero. The armies in various parts of 
the Empire chose their own generals to be Emperors, and 
several of them obtained possession of Rome, and were 
acknowledged by the Senate and People for a little whilt-. 
Thus Galba, Otho, Vitellizis, succeeded one another very 
quickly, each reigning a little time and being killed. At 
last, in the year 70, a more permanent power was established 
by Titus Flavius Vespasianus, who kept the Empire till aus 



86 THE HEATHEN EMPIRE. [chap. 

own death in 79, and was succeeded by his sons Titus and 
Do7nitian in succession. Vespasian made a much better 
ruler thexi any of the Emperors who had gone before him, 
and a long time of comparative peace and good government 
now began. In Vespasian's time the yews, who had rebelled 
in the time of Nero, were subdued by his son Titus, and 
Jerusalem was destroyed. And during the times of con- 
fusion, the JBatavians, a people near the mouth of the 
Rhine, very nearly akin to ourselves, had revolted and 
tried to set up an empire of their own in Gaul. This move- 
ment too was put down about the same time as that of the 
Jews. The power of Vespasian and his family was now 
firmly established, but it is to be noticed that the Flavian 
Emperors did not, like the Julian and Claudian, spring from 
any of the great and ancient families of Rome. This is a sign 
of the way in which old distinctions were breaking down. Titus 
reigned but two years after the death of his father ; he was 
called the Delight of Mankind, but his brother Domitian, 
who succeeded him and who professed to be a careful and 
severe assertor of the laws, gradually became as great a tyrant 
as any of the Claudii. In his time the conquest of Britain was 
completed by Agricola, and Rome found a new enemy to 
strive against in the Dacians beyond the Danube. Domitian 
was killed in 96, and the Flavian dynasty ended with him. 

7. The Good Emperors. — We now come to a time which 
in some sort continues the Flavian dynasty. The Roman 
world had now got thoroughly used to the rule of a single man, 
and there can be no doubt that the provinces were better off 
under the rule of the Emperors than they had been under 
the Commonwealth. And, from the accession of Vespasian 
onwards, there was a great feeling in favour of legal and 
regular government, of strict observance of the law and ot 
respect for the authority of the Senate. It was about this 
time that Law began to be a matter of special study, and 



IV.] THE GOOD EMPERORS. 87 



that the great Roman lawyers began to put together that 
system of Roman Law, known as the Civil Law, which has 
been the groundwork of the Law of most parts of Western 
Europe except England. Several famous writers, both in 
Greek and Latin, flourished at this time, especially the great 
historian Tacitus. The Emperors of this time, who are often 
called specially the Good Emperors, formed a kind of artifi- 
cial family, like that of the first Csesars, each man being 
succeeded, not by his real son, but by one whom he had 
adopted. Five thus reigned in order, Nerva from 96 to 98, 
Trajan from 98 to 117, Hadrian from 117 to 138, Antoninus 
Pius from 138 to 161, and Marcus Aurelius from 161 to 180. 
He was succeeded by Cotinnodus, who was his own son and 
not merely a son by adoption ; Commodus was the first 
Emperor who was born during the reign of his father. Of 
these Trajan was the first Emperor who was born out of 
Italy, being a native of Spain. Marcus Aurehus was a 
philosopher, who left some excellent moral writings behind 
him. With him the time of the Good Einperors ended. His 
son Commodus was, for vice and cruelty, one of the worst 
princes that ever reigned, and was at last murdered in 192. 

8. Emperors chosen by the Army. — A time now followed, 
lasting for nearly a hundred years, from 192 to 285, during 
which there is no need to go through all the Emperors by 
name. Many of them reigned but a very short time. The 
soldiers set up and slew Emperors as they chose, and the 
Senate was obliged to make the usual votes in favour of those 
who were thus set up. It was quite a rare thing for the 
Empire to pass from father to son, or by fair election by the 
Senate, or in any other peaceful and lawful way. The nearest 
approach to founding a dynasty or succession of Emperors 
in the same family happened in the family of Septimius Seve- 
r2is^ who reigned from 193 to 211. He and his sons called 
themselves Antoninus, though it does not seem that they were 



88 THE HE A THEN EMPIRE. [chap. 

descended from, or even adopted by, any of the Emperors of 
that name. Under Severus the government became still more 
military than it had been before. He was succeeded by his 
wicked son Antoninus, who is commonly called Caracalla. 
And, after he was murdered in 217, two Syrian youths, 
Elagabahis and Alexander Severus, who were said to be 
Caracalla's sons, were set up in succession, who both took the 
names of Aurehus and Antoninus. Of these Elagabalus was 
one of the worst, and Alexander one of the best, of the 
Emperors. In the time of Caracalla the old distinctions of 
Rojna?is, Latins, Italians, and Provincials were quite wiped 
out. Roman citizenship was now given to all the free inha- 
bitants of the Empire, so that a man in Britain or Greece 
or anywhere else called himself a Ro?nan, as in the East 
men have done ever since. It therefore happened that 
many of the best and bravest Emperors, especially towards 
the end of this time, were what would before have been 
called Barbarians. That word now meant those who were 
altogether outside the Empire. Many of the best of these 
later Emperors came from Illyria. Claudius, Aicrelian, and 
others, brave and wise men who rose by their merits, fol- 
lowed one another in swift succession, and had much fighting 
with the different enemies of Rome. At last one of the 
greatest of their number made a complete change in the con- 
stitution of the Empire, which we must presently speak of. 

9. The Tyrants. — While Emperors were thus set up and 
put down by the soldiers, it often happened that there were 
several Emperors or claimants of the Empire at once ; that is 
to say, the armies in different parts of the Empire had each 
set up their own general to be Emperor. And towards the 
end of this period it often happened that one of these pre- 
tenders contrived to keep some part of the Empire for several 
years, so that there were Emperors reigning in Gaul or 
Britain or some other province or provinces only. But these 



IV.] THE TYRANTS. 89 

local Emperors must not be mistaken for national rulers 
of the provinces where they reigned ; they claimed to be 
Roman Emperors^ and they of course aimed at getting the 
whole Empire, if they could. Sometimes the reigning Em- 
peror found it convenient to acknowledge them as colleagues ; 
if they were unsuccessful, they were called Tyrants. As in 
old Greece a Tyrant had meant a man who unlawfully seized 
on kingly power in a commonwealth, so now it meant a man 
who called himself Emperor, but who was held not to have a 
lawful right to the title. In the time of Gallienus, who reigned 
from 260 to 268, the whole Empire was split to pieces among 
various pretenders of this kind. One of these should be 
specially noticed, because it is the only case among all these 
divisions of anything like a real national state being founded. 
This was at Palmyra in Syria, where one Odenathus was 
acknowledged as Emperor, and after him his wife Zmobia^ 
one of the most wonderful women in history, reigned as Queen 
of the East. But this new kingdom was put down by Atireliatif 
one of the ablest of the Illyrian Emperors, in 271. 

10. Wars with the Persians and Germans. — Most of the 
Emperors from the time of the Flavian family onward had to 
wage constant wars against the enemies of Rome in different 
parts of her long frontier. And, what marks the beginning 
of a new state of things, they had now constantly to fight, 
not, as in former times, to make new conquests, but to keep 
what they had got already. Yet some new provinces were 
still for a while added to the Empire. Thus Trajan was a 
great conqueror : he won several provinces in the East from 
the Parthians, and also formed the province of Dacia beyond 
the Danube. But these distant conquests were not long 
kept ; the new provinces in the East were given up almost 
at once by Trajan's successor Hadrian, and Dacia was 
afterwards given up by Aurelian. In the East the Romans 
had presently to fight with a new enemy, no longer the 



90 THE HE A THEN EMPIRE. [chap. 

Parthians, but the real old Persians. They had been kept in 
bondage ever since the time of Alexander, but they rose up 
about '(r^.^ year 226 and founded a new Persian kingdom 
under Ardeshir ox Artaxerxes, whose descendants, called the 
SassanidcE, ruled over Persia more than four hundred years. 
Many of the Emperors had to wage war with the Persians, 
and among them Alexander Severus and Valerian, the father 
of Gallienus, who reigned from 253 to 260. He was taken 
prisoner by the Persians, and died in captivity. But the 
wars which the Romans had to wage in the West have a 
more special interest for us, as from about the time of Marcus 
Aurelius the various Teutonic tribes began really to threaten 
the Empire. Marcus had much to do in fighting with our 
kinsfolk along the Danube, and, before long, Teutonic nations 
began to press into the eastern part of the Empire also. We 
now first hear of the famous nation of the Goths, a people 
whose speech was very nearly akin to our own, and also of 
the Fra7tks, whose name has in later history been more 
famous still. The great Illyrian Emperors had much to do in 
fighting both with the Persians and with the Goths and other 
Teutonic people. And Claudius, who reigned before Aurelian 
from 268 to 270, won a great victory over the Goths, who 
for some time kept somewhat more quiet. We now come to 
a time of great changes in the internal state of the Empire. 

II. The Growth of Christianity. — All this while, almost 
from the very beginning of the Empire, a new religion had 
been growing up in the world. Our Lord Jesus Christ 
was born in the reign of Augustus and was crucified in the 
reign of Tiberius. Ever since that time Christianity had 
been gradually preached in most parts of the Empire, 
and the Christians were now a large and important body. 
The Christians were often cruelly persecuted, but it should 
be carefully noticed that, as a rule, it was not the worst 
Emperors who most persecuted them. The truth is that 



IV.] GROWTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 91 

the heathen religion of ancient Rome was looked on as 
part of the constitution of the state. Other Gods might 
be worshippedj if only the old Gods did not lose their 
worship, but a religion which taught that the Gods of Rome 
and of all other nations were alike false, and which strove 
to win over all mankind to that belief, was looked on as 
dangerous to the Empire. Those Emperors therefore who 
were most zealous to keep up the old laws and customs of 
Rome were commonly the most anxious to put down the new 
faith, and we therefore find that the Christians really suffered 
most under good and reforming princes like Trajan and 
Marcus Aurelius. Still the Church constantly advanced and 
made converts, for men had now but little real faith in the old 
Gods, and their worship was mainly kept up as a matter of 
state policy. And Christianity also had no small influence 
even on those who did not "accept it as a religion. A higher 
standard of morals and higher notions of the divine nature 
became common even among the heathens, and many a" phi- 
losopher who professed to hate and despise Christianity was 
a better man for Christianity having been preached. At last 
it became plain that a deadly struggle must come between the 
old faith and the new. Those who held that the greatness 
and glory of Rome were bound up with the worship of the 
old Gods of Rome saw that the time was come when a stand 
must be made. The Christians were now grown so powerful 
that several of the later Emperors, especially Decius and 
Valerian^ looked on them as dangerous to the state, and 
severe persecutions went on during their reigns. After that 
time, there was a lull ; the Christians were not molested for 
a long time, and their doctrine spread among all classes of 
people everywhere. At last, at the time which we have now 
reached, among many important changes, came the last and 
greatest persecution. 

12. Diocletian and his Successors. — During all this time 



92 THE HE A THEN EMPIRE. [chap. 

the notion of the Roman Commonwealth, the forms of which 
had been so carefully kept up under the earlier Emperors, 
had almost wholly died out. The Empire had become a 
military monarchy, in which the power of the prince rested 
mainly on the support of his soldiers. And another change 
gradually happened. All the inhabitants of the Empire 
were now equally Romans, and the Emperors had to move 
about wherever the needs of constant warfare called them. 
Italy therefore ceased to be any longer distinguished from 
the rest of the Empire, and even the importance of Rome 
itself, as the centre of the Empire, was greatly lessened. 
These great changes, which had already taken place in fact, 
were now formally acknowledged. In the year 284 the 
Empire fell to Diocletian^ another of the able Illyrians of 
whom so many had risen to the throne. He began quite 
a new order of things. There were to be two Emperors, 
with the title of Augusttis, reigning as colleagues, with two 
CcEsars under them. Speaking roughly, this fourfold division 
answered to Italy itself and the neighbouring countries, the 
Western provinces (Gaul, Spain, and Britain), the Greek, 
and the Orie7ital provinces. Many of the forms of royalty 
which had been unheard of before were now brought into 
use, though even now no Roman prince dared to take the title 
of King, and the Senate and Consuls still went on in name. 
But Rome was now quite forsaken as a dwelling-place of the 
Emperors, who found it better to live near the frontiers, 
whence they could keep watch against the Persians, Germans, 
and other enemies of the Empire. Thus Diocletian and his 
colleague Maximian lived respectively at Nikomedeia in Asia 
and at Milan, while one of the Ccesars was commonly placed 
in Gaul or Britain, at Trier or at York. In 303 Diocletian 
abdicated, and compelled his colleague Maximian to abdicate 
also. But towards the end of their reign they put forth a 
series of cruel edicts against the Christians, and the heaviest 



IV.] CHANGES UNDER DIOCLETIAN. 93 

of all the persecutions now took place. But the Church 
lived through all attempts to destroy it, and its greatest 
worldly success followed soon after this great persecution. 
The system of Augusti with Ccesars under them was not 
regularly kept up for any long time. A series of civil wars 
followed, till at last the whole Empire was joined together 
again in the hands of Constantine, called the Great. He 
began to reign at York in 306, he obtained the whole 
Empire in 323 and reigned till 337. He was the first Em- 
peror who acknowledged himself a Christian, and other 
important changes were made in his time, which will be 
spoken of in the next chapter. 

13. Summary. — We have thus gone through' the history of 
heathen Rome both under the Commonwealth and under the 
Empire. It began as a single city ; it gradually gained the 
dominion first over Italy, and then over all the lands round 
the Mediterranean Sea, and it gradually admitted its subjects 
and allies to its own citizenship. When the government of a 
single city became quite unable to act as the government of 
the whole civilized world, all power gradually came into the 
hands of one man, and the practical holding of all power 
b> one man gradually changed into an avowed monarchy. 
Then, when all the inhabitants of the Empire were alike 
Romans, the city of Rome became, as it were, lost in the 
Roman Empire, and other cities began to be seats of govern- 
ment. At the same time new enemies, namely our own 
kinsfolk, were beginning to threaten the Empire, and a new 
religion, that which we ourselves believe, was beginning to sup- 
plant the old religion of Rome. We have thus come to a time 
of very great and speedy change, and to the first beginnings 
of the state of things which still goes on in modern Europe. 
There is in some things a greater change between the first 
Emperors and the Emperors after Constantine than there was 
between the old Kings of Rome and the first Emperors. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. 

Mistory of Constantine ; his chaftges in the government of the Em' 
j^ire (i) — he fixes his capital at Constantinople or New Rome (i) 
— reigns of Constantius and Julian (l) — establishment of Chris- 
tianity ; disputes and Councils in the Church {2)— forms assumed 
by Christianity in diffei^ent parts of the Empire (2) — revival of 
paganism tinder Julian ; its final extinction (2) — Teutonic settle- 
ments within the Empire (3) — movejnents of the Goths ; defeat and 
death of Valens (4) — reigns of Theodosius and his sons (4) — Rome 
taken by Alaric {d^— foundation of the Gothic kingdom in Spain 
(4) — invasion of Attila {5) — later Emperors in the West ; the two 
Empires nominally reu7iited; rtcle of Odoacer in Italy (5) — settle- 
ineiits of the Burgundians and Fi-anks in Gaul ; reign and con- 
quests of Chlodwig (6) — settlement of the Vandals in Africa (7) — 
reign of Theodoric in Italy (7) — intei'mixture of Romans and 
Teutons; oi'igin of the Romance nations {^) — growth of the Ro- 
mance languages (9) — distinctions of High and lo'iv Dutch (lo) — 
the English conquest of Britain ; its differences from the other 
Teutonic settlements (11). 

I. Constantine and his Family. — The changes which were 
v/rought by Constantine made him one of the most famous 
of all the Emperors. He was the son of Constantius, who 
had reigned under Diocletian and Maximian in Britain, 
Spain, and Gaul, and who, though not a Christian himself, 
had, out of justice and humanity, done what he could to 
protect the Christians. Constantine himself for a long time 
did the same. He protected the Christians, but he did not 



CHAP, v.] CONSTANTINE AND HIS FAMIL Y. 95 

profess their religion till the last civil war in 323, which gave 
him possession of the whole Empire. He presently made a 
change which had a great effect upon the later history of the 
Empire. Rome, as we have seen, had ceased to be the usual 
dwelling-place of the Emperors, and they had been commonly 
living at Milan, Nikomedeia, and other places. Constantine 
now fixed the capital of the Empire in the old Greek city of 
Byzantion on the Bosporos, which he greatly enlarged and 
called New Rome, but which has ever since been better 
known as Constantinople or the City of Constantine. The 
chief power was thus placed in a city which was Christian 
from what we may call its new birth, and which had none-of 
the heathen associations of the Old Rome. And, as Constan- 
tinople was in its origin a Greek city, it soon again became, 
though it was the capital of the Roman Empire, a city more 
Greek than Roman, and it gradually became the chief seat 
of Greek culture and learning rather than Antioch and 
Alexandria. Constantine too in his new capital was able to 
set more fully in order the despotic system of government 
which had been brought in by Diocletian. From this time, 
though the Senate and the Consuls still went on, we may 
look on the Empire as being an absolute monarchy in form 
as well as in fact. And moreover Constantine not only 
reigned longer than any Emperor since Augustus, but he 
established his power so firmly that the Empire lasted in his 
family as long as any of his family were left. But they were 
mostly cut off by their own kinsfolk. Constantine divided 
his dominions among his three sons, but at last, in 350, the 
Empire was united again in his son Cgnstantitcs, who reigned 
at Constantinople till 361. There were several revolts and 
rival Emperors in his time, as well as many disputes in the 
Church, and unsuccessful wars with the Germans and Per- 
sians. But his cousin Julian^ who was CcEsar under him in 
the West, drove the Germans out of Gaul, and thus made 



96 7tTE EARLY CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. [chap. 



himself a ^reat name. At last his soldiers proclaimed hiro 
Augustus^ and as Constantius died soon after, Julia7i gol 
possession of the whole Empire without much trouble. But 
his reign did not last long, as in 363 he died in war against 
the Persians, and the family of Constantine ended with him, 
2. The Establishment of Christianity. — When Constantine 
embraced Christianity the long struggle between the Church 
and the power of heathen Rome came to an end. The 
Church conquered the Empire. Not only did the Empire 
become Christian, but Christianity became in a special way 
the religion of the Empire. Christianity has hardly any- 
where taken firm and lasting root, except in those countries 
which either formed part of the Roman Empire or learned 
their religion and civilization from it, and from this time the 
history of the Church and of the Empire go together. Con- 
stantine, as was often done at that time, put off his baptism 
till just before his death. Yet he acted throughout as the 
chief ruler of the Church ; and when Arms, a priest of 
Alexandria, put forth new doctrines as to the more myste- 
rious points of Christian belief, it was by his authority, as 
Emperor, that a Council of Bishops was gathered together at 
Nikaia in Bithynia in 325. This is commonly called the 
Council of Nice, and here the Nicene Creed was drawn up. 
This was the first of what are called the General Councils of 
the Church, several of which were held in this and the next 
century. For men were at this time constantly disputing 
about the deepest doctrines of the Christian religion, and 
each heresy, that is, each new and strange kind of teaching, 
commonly called for a Council to settle the dispute. The 
truth is that the despotic system of the Empire had so 
thoroughly crushed men's minds in all political matters that 
it was only on points of religion that there was any free play 
of thought at all. Moreover, while Christianity is essentially 
the religion of the Roman Empire, different forms of Chris- 



v.] ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 97 

tianity took their firmest root in different parts of the Empire, 
according to the character and turn of mind of the people. 
Thus in the West, where Latin was spoken, men thought less 
a;bout s.ubtle points of doctrine ; but we shall see that, before 
long, Rome again became the ruling and Imperial city in 
ecclesiastical matters, as she had once been in temporal 
dominion. Meanwhile, in the 6^r^^>^-speaking provinces 
men's minds were more given to hard questions of doctrine. 
As the Greeks had in old times produced so many subtle 
philosophers, so they now produced equally subtle divines. 
And in the further East, in Syria and Egypt, in the lands 
which had never thoroughly become either Greek or Roman, 
men were constantly falling off into doctrines which both 
Greeks and Latins thought heretical. This was the only way 
that was left to them of asserting their national independence. 
Thus the whole Empire gradually embraced Christianity ; but 
Christianity took different shapes in different parts, and there 
were long disputings on various points of doctrine, and ot 
course men did not become Christians of any kind all at 
once. Many still clave to the old heathen worship, espe- 
cially what we may call the two ends of mankind, that is to 
say, the philosophers who trusted in their own wisdom, and 
the rude peasantry in the country places. For Christianity was 
everywhere preached first in the towns ; hence it came that 
the word paganus, which at first simply meant a countiytnan, 
came to mean a pagan or heathen or worshipper of false 
Gods. Still, from the time that Constantine professed him- 
self a Christian, Christianity grew and paganism went back, 
ihough it cannot be doubted that the spread of Christianity 
was greatly hindered by the endless disputes in the Church. 
Constaiitius favoured the Arians, and, after his death, pagan- 
ism got a new start for a moment. For Julian, though he 
had been brought up as a Christian, and though in his own 
lil^ he wasw one of the best of all the Emperors, fell back again 

H 



98 THE EARL Y CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. [chap. 

to the worship of the old Gods. But all the Emperors aftei 
him were Christians, and, by the end of the fourth century aftei 
Christ, the Christians were, to say the least, the great majority 
in most parts of the Empire. Under the Emperors Gratian 
and Theodosius, who reigned between them from 367 to 395, 
the public profession of paganism was quite put an end to. 

3. The Teutonic Invasions. — We have now come to the 
time when the nations of our own race began to make their 
way into the Empire. We have seen that the different Gerinan 
tribes had been most dangerous enemies of Rome ever since 
the time of Augustus, and that many of the most valiant 
Emperors had had much ado to defend the Empire against 
them. So it was still ; Constantine and Julian had to fight 
hard against the Germans, and so had Valentinian, the 
next Emperor but one after Julian. But in all these wars, 
though the Germans were constantly driven back, yet they 
grew stronger and stronger, while the Romans grew weaker 
and weaker. Some of the Germans made their way into 
the Empire in arms ; others took service in the Roman 
armies, and often received grants of land as their reward. 
In both ways they learned something of Roman civilization 
and Roman military disciphne, without losing anything of 
their own strength and courage. Presently it became not 
uncom.mon for a Gothic or other Teutonic chief to be at 
once King of his own people and to bear some title as a 
Roman general or magistrate. In such cases he and 
his people served the Emperors or fought against them, 
pretty much as they thought good, or according as they were 
well or ill treated. And at the same time they learned some- 
thing of the religion of Rome, so that most of the Teutonic 
nations became Christians before they settled in the Empire 
or very soon after. But it was for the most part in its Arian 
form that , they embraced Christianity. Thus we find Bar- 
barians, who for the most part however were Christians. 



v.] THE TEUTONIC INVASIONS. . 99 

settled within the Empire, and before long they began to 
occupy whole provinces. We have now come to the time 
when the Teutonic settlements and conquests become the 
most important facts in our history. It often happens that 
the migrations and victories of one nation are caused by 
some other nation pressing upon it. And so it happened 
now. The movement of the Teutonic nations into the 
Roman Empire which had already begun was greatly has- 
tened and strengthened by the pressure of Turanian tribes 
who were pushing their way from the East The chief of 
these were the Huns, who had been themselves driven out of 
China in the extreme east of Asia, and who were now 
making their way into Europe. Though the Huns did not 
themselves enter the Empire till long afterwards, and 
though they never actually settled within it at any time, yet 
this migration of theirs had a most important effect on the 
state of the Empire, by the stir which it caused among the 
Teutonic nations. 

4. The Goths. — The first Teutonic people whom the Huns 
met were the Goths, who had lately formed a great kingdom 
in the land north of the Danube, which had been Trajan's 
province of Dacia, but from which the Romans had with- 
drawn under Aureli-an. They were beginning to become 
Christians of the Arian sect under the teaching of a Bishop 
named Wulfila or Ulfilas, whose translation of the Scrip- 
tures into the Gothic tongue is the oldest Teutonic writing 
that we have. The Huns now came upon them like a storm ; 
some of the Goths submitted to the new invaders, while 
others were allowed to cross the Danube and settle within 
the Empire. This was in 376. The first Valentinian was 
now dead : the reigning Emperors were his brother Valens 
in the East and his sons Graiian and Valentinian in the 
West. The Goths were so ill-treated by the officers of 
Valens that they took to arms ; a battle was fought near 

H2 



loo THE EARL V CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. [chap. 

Hadrianople in 378, in which Valens was killed. After this 
the Goths were never driven out of the Empire, though many 
of them took service in the Roman armies. This was a most 
wretched time for the Empire ; for, besides the movements 
of the Barbarians, various Emperors or Tyrants rose and 
fell in different Provinces, especially in Gaul and Britain. 
Things went on a little better during the reign of Theodosius^ 
who is called the Great^ and who reigned, first as a colleague 
of the sons of Valentinian, and afterwards alone, from 379 
to 395. Theodosius is famous for the penance to which he 
submitted at the hands of Saint Ambrose^ the Archbishop 
of Milan, who refused him admittance to the church till he 
had repented of a massacre which he had ordered among the 
turbulent people of Thessalonica. Theodosius was the last 
Emperor who reigned over the whole Empire before it was 
divided and dismembered ; as soon as he died it began to 
fall in pieces. He left two sons, of whom Ho7iorius reigned 
in the West, and Arcadius in the East. The West-Goths, 
under their famous King Alaric, presently revolted, and, 
though they were kgpt in check for a while by the Roman 
general Stilicho, at last, in 410, they took and sacked Rome, 
which had never been taken by a foreign enemy since the 
time of Brennus the Gaul. Alaric died soon after, and the next 
Gothic King Athmilf made a treaty with the Empire and 
passed into Gaul and Spain. German tribes of all kinds were 
now pressing into Gaul, and from Gaul into Spain, and rival 
Emperors were rising and falling. Athaulf went in name 
as a Roman officer to restore the province of Spain to the 
Empire. In reality this was the beginning of an independent 
Gothic kingdom in Spam and Southern Gaul, and the way 
in which this kingdom began is a good example of the way 
in which the Roman Empire, its laws and titles, still exercised 
a powerful influence on the minds of those who were really 
its conquerors. 



v.] THE LATER EMPERORS. loi 



5. End of the Emperors in Italy. — Meanwhile the TVestern 
Empire was being cut short in all quarters by the settlements 
of the Fra7tks, Biirgimdians, Vandals^ and other Teutonic 
tribes in the different provinces, settlements of which we «ihall 
speak of again presently. And while the Western provinces 
were thus falling off one by one, the East had much ado tc 
hold up against the attacks of the Persians. Presently the 
Romans of both Empires, and the Goths and other Teutons 
who had settled within the Empire, were all threatened by the 
Turanian hordes under the famous Attila, King of tYiQ Huns. 
He went on for a while ravaging and conquering far and widCj, 
till at last he was defeated in the great battle of Chalons in 451 
by the united powers of Romans, Goths, and Franks. This was 
one of the most important battles in the history of the world ; 
it was a struggle for life and death between the Aiyan and 
Turanian races, and Christianity and civilization, and all that 
distinguishes Europe from Asia and Africa, were at stake. 
The names therefore of Aetius, the Roman general, and of 
the West- Gothic King Theodoric who died in the battle, are 
names which should always be held in honour. It is needless 
to go through the names of all the Emperors of this time : the 
only one in the West who is worth remembering on his own 
account is Majorian, a wise and brave man, who reigned from 
457 to 461. At last, in 476, the succession of the Western 
Emperors came to an end, and the way in which it came to 
an end marks the way in which the names and titles ot 
Rome were kept on, while all power was passing into the 
hands of the Barbarians. The Roman Senate voted that one 
Emperor was enough, and that the Eastern Emperor Zeno 
should reign over the whole Empire. But at the same time 
Ze7io was made to entrust the government of Italy with the 
title of Patrician to Odoacer, the chief of a German people 
called the Heruli., Thus the Roman Empire went on at 
Constantinople or New Rome, while Italy and the Old Rome 



»02 THE EARL Y CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. [chap. 

itself passed into the power of the Barbarians. Still the 
Rom.an laws and names went on, and we may be sure that 
any man in Italy would have been much surprised if he had 
been told that the Roman Empire had come to an end. We 
shall presently see what important events came of this long 
keeping on of the old Roman names and feelings. 

6. Settlements of the Burgundians and Franks. — It was 
through these settlements of the Teutonic tribes within the 
Roman Empire that several of the chief nations of modern 
Europe arose. We may perhaps call the Spanish kingdom 
of the West-Goths^ of which we have already spoken and 
which began about 414, the first of the kingdoms of modern 
Europe, the first which arose out of the breaking up of the 
Roman Empire. For some while it was not merely a Spanish 
kingdom, for it took in all Aquitaine or Gaul south of the 
Loire, and the capital of the West-Gothic kings was at 
Toulouse. Meanwhile the Burgundians and Franks, whose 
names are so famous in later history, began to settle, at 
first under a nominal subjection to the Empire, in other 
parts of Gaul. The Bttrgimdians settled in the south- 
eastern part of Gaul, where their name has lived on in 
several kingdoms and duchies. And, towards the end of 
the fifth century, the kingdom of . the Franks took firm 
root in Gaul under their King Chlodwig or Clovis — the 
same name which was afterwards written Ludwig, Louis, and 
Lewis — v/ho reigned from 481 to 511. He became a Chris- 
tian, and not only a Christian but a Catholic, which greatly 
favoured his conquests, as all the other Teutonic Kings 
were Arians. The dominions of the Franks now took in 
part of their old country in Germany and also their conquests 
in Gaul. And they have given their name to parts of both 
countries ; for part of Germany is still called Franken or 
I'^ranconia, and part of Gaul is still called. iv-^^^^;^. In Latin 
both names are the same, Francia. But the Franks gradually 



V.]- REIGN OF THEODORIC. 103 

spread their conquests over a much larger part both of Gaul 
and of Germany, bringing the different nations of both into 
more or less subjection to them. Thus they conquered the 
kingdom of the Burgu7idia7is and won Aqicitaine from the 
West-Goths, leaving to them only a small part of Gaul on 
the coast of the Mediterranean. But it was only in Northern 
Gaul that the Franks really settled. It was out of these 
settlements of the West-Goths, Franks, and Burgundians 
that all the modern states of Germany, Gaul, and Spain 
have arisen. 

7. The Vandals and the East-Goths. — But there were 
other Teutonic settlements in the Empire which did not in 
this way give birth to modern states and nations, because the 
Emperors were, as we shall presently see, able to join them 
again to the Empire. Among these were what we may call 
the worst and the best of the Teutonic settlements, those 
namely of the Vandals in Africa and of the East-Goths in 
Italy. The Vandals were for some time settled in Spain, 
but in 429 they crossed over into Africa and founded a king- 
dom of which Carthage was the capital. The Vandals were 
Arians, and they cruelly persecuted the Catholic Romans whom 
they found in the country, and this seems to have been one 
reason among others why their kingdom did not last. The 
kingdom of the East-Goths in Italy was very different. 
Their King Theodoric entered Italy in 489 by a commission 
from the Emperor Zeno, overthrew Odoacer, and reigned 
himself from 493 to 526. But, though he reigned in Italy, he 
was never called King of Italy but only King of his own 
Goths. Though he was an Arian, he in no way persecuted 
the Catholics, and he let the Romans keep their own laws 
and all that they were used to. Every year he named one ot 
the Consuls, while the other was named by the Emperor at 
Constantinople. Italy under Theodoric was the most peace- 
ful and flourishing country in the world, more peaceful and 



I04 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. [chap. 

flourishing than it had been for a long time before or than it 
has ever been since till quite lately. The dominions of 
Theodoric stretched far beyond Italy to the north, east, and 
west, and he ruled the West-Gothic kingdom in Gaul and 
Spain as guardian for his grandson. But this great dominion 
of the East-Goths did not last any more than that of the 
Vandals in Africa, and none of the modern states or nations 
of Europe can be said to spring from either of them. 

8. Origin of the Romance Nations. — We thus see that 
new states arose out of the settlements of the Teutonic 
nations in the western provinces of the Empire. And we 
may say that not only new states arose but also new nations. 
For, out of the mixture of the Roman inhabitants and the 
Teutonic settlers, there arose a new state of things, which 
was neither Roman nor Teutonic, but a mixture of the two. 
The Goths and the other Teutons who settled in Italy, Spain^ 
and Gaul were by no means mere destroyers who swept 
everything before them. They let the Romans keep their 
own laws and language and part of their lands. And in 
Spain and Gaul those nations, like the Goths and Burgun- 
dians, who had been converted by Arian Bishops gradu- 
ally came over to the Catholic faith. Moreover, as the 
Romans had all the learning and civilization on their side, 
the clergy were for a long time almost always Romans, and 
they kept the property and influence which they had before, 
and indeed added to it. Thus the two nations were gradually 
mixed together ; and the conquerors, as being the smaller in 
number, gradually came to adopt a great deal of the laws and 
manners and especially the language of the conquered. Thus 
there arose the modern Spanish and Italian nations, and the 
two nations in Gaul, the people of Provence and Aquitaine 
south of the Loire and the French to the north. But of the 
languages which were thus formed we must speak a little 
more fully. 



v.] ORIGIN OF THE ROMAN NATIONS. 105 

9. Origin of the Romance Languages. — By the time 
the Teutonic settlements in Western Europe took place, 
Latin had become the common speech of Gaul and 
Spain no less than of Italy. The old languages which were 
spoken before the Romans came lived on only in a few 
out-of-the-way corners, like the country of the Basques. 
The language therefore which the Teutonic settlers found 
prevailing, and which they had to learn in order to get 
on with the people of the provinces, was Latin. That is to 
say, such Latin as was spoken at the time, which of course 
was not quite the same as the Latin of the great Roman 
writers of earlier times, and the language no doubt differed 
more or less in different provinces. And, as the Germans 
learned to speak Latin, the language naturally became still 
more corrupted, and a good many German words crept into 
it. Thus the common language of Italy, Gaul, and Spain 
became a sort of corrupt Latin, which men used in common 
speech; in writing they used fairly good Latin for ages after. 
No one thought of writing in the common speech, which 
began to be called Roman, in distinction from the Latin which 
men wrote. Thus, out of the various dialects of this Rofnan 
language, several of the chief languages of modern Europe 
very gradually arose. These are those which are called the 
Romance languages, those namely which have their origin 
in Latin. The chief of these are Italian and Spanish in 
their different dialects, Provencal in Southern, and French in 
Northern, Gaul. These languages had their beginning at 
the time of which we are now speaking, but it was not until 
long afterwards that men began to understand that quite 
new languages had really grown up. And, besides these four 
great i?^?;m;?^^ languages, a fifth, distinct from any of them, 
which is still specially called Romansch, is spoken in the 
eastern parts of Switzerland, in what was anciently the 
Roman province of Rcstia. And, stranger still, in the pre 



lo6 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. [chap. 

vince of Dacia, which the Romans held only from the time 
of Trajan to that of Aurelian, a Romance language is still 
spoken, and the people still call themselves Roicina7is. Of 
the fourth great Latin-speaking country, Africa, we have 
nothing to say in this way, for, as we go on, we shall see 
how in Africa everything Roman and everything Teutonic 
was utterly swept away. 

lo. High and Low Dutch. — Such was the way in which 
the Teutonic nations established themselves in the western 
provinces of the Continent. Meanwhile other Teutonic set- 
tlements of quite another kind, and made by another branch 
of the Teutonic race, were going on elsewhere. This is a good 
place to stop and explain that there are two great divisions 
of the Teutonic or Dutch people, the High and the Low. It 
must always be remembered that, though we now commonly 
use the word Dutch to mean only the people of Holland, yet 
the word is always used in German, and was formerly used in 
English, to mean the whole of the German people. And, as 
the Germans called their own speech Thiotisc or Dutch, mean- 
ing the language which could be understood, those people 
whose language could not be understood were called Welsh 
or strangers. The High-Dutch are those who live inland, 
in the south of Germany away from the sea, while the 
Low are those who live near the sea, by the mouths of the 
great rivers Rhine, Weser, and Elbe. Into the greater part 
of their country the Romans had never come since the days 
of Drusus and Germanicus, and for a long time they knew 
very little of the Romans, and the Romans knew very little 
of them. They had not served in the Roman armies, and 
they knew nothing about the Christian religion. They were 
therefore in quite a different state from the other tribes who 
had made their way into the continental provinces, and who 
knew something of the civilization and religion of Rome, 
even before they entered the Roman dominions. Of the 



v.] HIGH AND LOW DUTCH. 107 

earlier Teutonic settlers the greater part belonged to the 
High-Dutch division, though the language of the Goths had 
much more in common with the Low. But, though the Low- 
Dutch and Gothic languages are thus closely connected, yet 
the settlements of the Goths have historically nothing to do 
with the settlements of the Low-Dutch. The Low-Dutch 
settlements which have had most effect on the history of the 
world, and in which we have the deepest interest, were made 
in quite another part of the Empire, and in quite another way. 
The settlements of the Goths and Franks were mainly made 
by land, while the great settlement of the Low-Dutch tribes 
was made by sea. 

II. The English Conquest of Britain. — We have seen 
that in the island of Britain^ of which the greater part 
became a Roman province in the time of Agricola, the 
Romans found a Celtic people, the Britons. But in the 
north of the island, and in the other great island of Ire- 
land, there was another Celtic people, the Scots or Irish, 
The Romans never even tried to conquer Ireland, and they 
never conquered the whole of Britain. The northern part 
of what is now called Scotland always remained free. In 
the rest of the island the Britons were conquered, and 
the land became a Roman province. But in the fourth 
century, when the power of Rome began to get weaker, the 
free Celts in the northern part of the island, the Picts and 
Scots, began to pour into the Roman province, and other 
enemies began to come against the land from the east by sea. 
These last were no other than our own forefathers. For we 
ourselves, the English people, belong to the Low-Dutch 
stock, who came into Britain from the old Low- Dutch lands 
by the Elbe and the Weser. It was in the latter part of 
the fourth century that these Low-Dutch tribes, and, first 
among them, the Saxons, began to make attacks on Britain 
by sea. The Saxons are also heard of as pressing into Gaul 



io8 THE EARL Y CHRISTIAN EMPIRE. [chap. 

by land, and they even made one or two small settlements 
there ; but their attacks on Britain by sea were those which 
led to the greatest results. For a while they were driven 
off by the Romans, but when the Roman power began 
altogether to give way in the reign of Honorius, the 
Roman troops were withdrawn from Britain, about the 
year 410, and the island was left to shift for itself. The 
Teutonic invasions now began again, and now it was that 
our forefathers began to settle in the land where the English 
now dwell. No doubt men of many different Low-Dutch 
tribes joined in these expeditions ; but there were three 
tribes which stood out above the others. These were the 
Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. The Celts, the Britons 
and Scots, have always called us Saxons j but, as soon as 
the different Teutonic tribes in Britain began to join to- 
gether into one people, the name by which they called them- 
selves was Angles or English, and the land was called 
Anglia or England. Thus it was that this people, the 
English people, came from their old homes on the main- 
land, and won for themselves new homes in the isle of 
Britain. They knew nothing and cared nothing for the laws 
or language or arts of Rome. They did not, like the Goths 
and Franks, adopt the language and religion of the Romans ; 
they swept everything before them, and the Britons were 
either killed or made slaves, or took refuge in the western 
parts of the island. The Germans everywhere called the 
people of the Roman provinces, whose tongue they did not 
understand, Welsh, and that word in German is still ap- 
plied to the French and Italians. But in Britain of course 
the name meant the Britons ; they were, and are still, called 
the Welsh, and the part of the island which they still keep 
is called Wales. The first English kingdom founded in 
Britain was that of Kent, a kingdom of the Jutes, founded 
in 449, two years before Aetius and Theodoric overthrew 



v.] THE ENGLISH IN BRITAIN. 109 

Attila at Chalons. Presently other kingdoms, Anglian and 
Saxon, were founded, and, in a little more than a hundred 
years, the greater part of that land which had been the 
Roman and Christian province of Britain had become 
the heathen land of the Angles and Saxons. Thus it was 
that the English people settled in the land which thus be- 
came England, settling in quite another way from that in 
which the other Teutonic nations had settled in the other 
parts of the Empire. Our forefathers kept their own lan- 
guage and their own religion. They did not become Chris- 
tians till about a hundred and fifty years after the English 
Conquest began, and then they were not converted by 
those whom they had conquered. And the tongue which 
they still speak, though, like other tongues, it has gone 
through many changes, is still in its main substance the old 
Teutonic speech of their ancestors. 

12. Summary. — Thus, in the course of the fourth and fifth 
centuries, the Roman Empire gradually became Christian. 
The capital was moved to Constantinople, and, when the 
Empire was divided, Constantinople always remained the 
capital of the Eastern part. Meanwhile the Goths, Franks, 
and other Teutonic nations pressed into the Empire, and out 
of their settlements the Romance nations of modern Europe 
arose. The invasion of the Huns was driven back by the 
united powers of Romans and Teutons. The series of 
Emperors in the West came to an end, and the Empire was 
nominally reunited, Theodoric the Goth reigning in Italy. 
Meanwhile the Low-Dutch tribes, the Angles and Saxons, 
were settling in Britain, and making the beginning of the 
great English nation. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST. 

Continuation of the RoTnan Empire at Constantinople [\)— condition 
of the Eastern Church (l) — reign of ytistinian, his legislation and 
buildings {2) — exploits of Belisarius and Nurses ; recovery of 
Africa and Italy (2) — Lombard conquest of Italy ; relations of 
Rome and Venice to the Empire (2) — tvars with the Turks and 
Avars (3) — greatness of Persia under the two Chosroes ; Persian 
victories of Heraclius {3) — rise of the Saracens ; preaching of 
Mahomet; spread of his religion (4) — the first Caliphs; their 
wars tvith the E??ipire ; conquests of Syria and Egypt ; sieges of 
Constantinople (5) — Saracen conquests in Af-ica, Spain, and 
Southe7'n Gaid {$) — Saracen conquest of Persia ; breaking up of 
the Saracenic dominion ; position of the later Caliphs (6) — the 
Isaurian Emperors ; dispute about images ; decline of the Impe- 
rial power in Italy {']) — advance of the Lombards in Italy (8) — ■ 
the Mer^vings iiz Gaid ; they are succeeded by the Karlings (8) — 
Peppin invited into Italy ; he becomes Patrician of Rome (8) — 
Charles the Great conquers the Lo7nbards ; his election as 
Emperor (8, 9) — Summary (10) 

I. The Roman Emperors at Constantinople. — The suc- 
cession of Roman Emperors thus came to an end in the 
West, but the Empire still went on at Constantinople. The 
Emperors who reigned there still claimed to be sovereigns of 
fhe whole Empire, though they had no real power west of 
the Hadriatic. The parts of the Empire which were really 
under their dominion were chiefly those which either were 
originally Greek, or where the Greek language and civiliza- 
tion had been spread by the conquests of Alexander ; that is, 



CH. VI.] THE EMPERORS A T CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 1 1 



those which I have before spoken of as the Greek and the 
Oriental provinces. Still it must be borne in mind that these 
Emperors were strictly Roman Emperors. The Imperial suc- 
cession went on without any break ; the laws and titles of 
Rome were kept up, and, though Greek was the language 
which was most spoken, yet Latin remained for a long time 
the official language, that which was used in drawing up 
laws and public documents of all kinds. There is no need 
to say much about the Emperors who reigned at Constanti- 
nople between the death of Theodosius the Great and the 
nominal reunion of the Empire in 476. Their time was 
mainly taken up with wars with the Persians, in which the 
Romans generally got the worst, with the invasion of Attila 
and his Huns, and with ecclesiastical disputes within the 
Empire. The people of the Oriental provinces especially, 
who had never thoroughly become either Greek or Roman, 
were constantly putting forth or adopting doctrines which 
the Cathohc Church, both of the Old and of the New Rome, 
looked on as heretical. Several Councils of the Church 
were held during this time, and this was the time of some 
of the most famous of the Greek Fathers, especially the 
great preacher Saint John Ch?ysostom, that is the Golden- 
mouth, who was Patriarch of Constantinople. The 
Patriarchs of Constantinople or New Rome were the chief 
Bishops in the East, but, as the Emperors were always 
at hand, they never won anything like the same power which 
the Bishops of the Old Rome won in the West. Thus, 
though the history of the Eastern Empire is largely a his- 
tory of ecclesiastical disputes, yet we never find there the 
sam.e kind of disputes between Church and State, between 
the ecclesiastical and the temporal powers, which make up 
so large a part of Western history. 

2. The Recovery of Italy and Africa. — As the claims of 
the Emperors who reigned at Constantinople to rule over all 



112 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST. [chap. 

the dominions of their predecessors were never forgotten, 
so they were put forward whenever there was any chance 
of making them good. And soon after the Emperors came 
to an end in the West, the Emperors at Constantinople 
had several opportunities of meddling in Western affairs. 
The Franks were too powerful and too far off for the 
Emperors to have any chance against them ; so they were 
held to be friends of the Empire, and in 510 Chlodwig him- 
self was made Roman Consul for the year. With Italy the 
Emperors had much more to do. We have seen that both 
Odoacer and Theodoric entered Italy with a nominal com- 
mission from the Emperor Zeno, which at least kept up 
the memory of the claims of the Emperors to rule in Italy. 
As long as Theodoric lived there was no hope of anything 
more than this ; but after his death the power of the Goths 
in Italy declined. So did also that of the Vandals in Africa, 
and the reigning Emperor now began to think that it would 
be possible to make both countries again really, as well 
as nominally, parts of the Empire. This Emperor was 
yustinian, who reigned from 527 to 565, and was one of the 
most famous of all the Emperors. He was famous for his 
buildings, especially for the great church of Sahit Sophia at 
Constantinople, and still more for putting the laws of Rome 
into the shape of a regular code. Thus was formed that 
complete system of Roman law, called the Civil Law, 
which has formed the groundwork of the law of the more 
part of Europe. Justinian was also famous for the great 
conquests made in his reign, though he had not much to do 
with making them himself. His general ^<?//^^rzV^j was per- 
haps the greatest commander that ever lived, as he did the 
greatest things with the smallest means. He did something 
to check the Persians, who were now very powerful under a 
great King called Chosroes or Nushirva7i. In 534 Belisarius 
put an end to the Vandal kingdom in Africa, and the next 



VI.] CONQUESTS OF JUSTINIAN. 113 

year, being then Consul, he landed in Sicily, and a long war 
between the Romans and Goths went on under Belisarius 
and his successor Narses, till, in 553, the whole of Italy was 
recovered to the Empire. Meanwhile the southern part of 
Spain was also recovered from thfe West-Goths, so that 
Justinian reigned both in the Old and in the New Rome, and 
the Roman dominion again stretched from the Ocean to the 
Euphrates. It would have been far wiser if Justinian had 
left the West alone, and had given his mind to defending 
hiG Eastern dominions against the Persians and against the 
various enemies who were attacking the Empire from the 
north. But, as Roman Emperor, he could not withstand the 
temptation, and he. most likely thought it his duty, to re- 
cover as many of the old provinces of the Empire as he 
could. But, after all, it was only for a very few years that 
the Emperors were able to keep the whole of Italy. Three 
years after Justinian's death, in 568, a Teutonic people called 
the Lombards began to pour into Italy, and they presently 
conquered the whole North and some parts of the South. 
Still a large part of Italy, including Rome and Ravenna, most 
part of the South, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and 
Corsica, remained to the Empire. Venice 2Xsq)j a city which 
began to spring up in the fifth century, when men fled for 
fear of the Huns and sought shelter in the small islands of 
the Hadriatic, also kept up its connexion with the Empire, 
but its connexion gradually became one rather of alliance 
than of subjection. 

3. Wars with the Persians. — -We thus see that, at the 
end of the sixth century, the Empire, though so large a part 
of it had fallen away, still took in the greater part of the 
countries round the Mediterranean Sea, and still kept all 
the greatest cities of Europe, Asia, and Africa. But it was 
threatened on all sides, not only by the Lombards in the West 
but by the Slavonian and Turanian nations who were pressing 

I 



114 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST. [chap. 

in from the North in the countries by the Danube, and still 
more by the Persians in the East. It was in the reign ot 
Justinian that we first began to hear of the Turks. That 
name does not mean those particular Turks who made their 
way into the Empire long afterwards, and who hold Constan- 
tinople still. The Turks with whom we have now to do 
belonged to other branches of the great Turkish race, which 
is perhaps the most widely spread of all the Turanian races 
of Asia, and of the different branches of which we shall often 
hear again. Another Turanian people, the Avars, also appear 
on the borders of the Empire at this time, and several Em- 
perors, especially Mmirice, who reigned from 582 to 602, had 
much ado to defend their northern frontier against them. 
Meanwhile the Persians were at the height of their power, 
and under another Chosroes, a grandson of Chosroes called 
Nushirvan, they bade fair to subdue all the Eastern 
provinces of the Empire. Between the years 611 and 
615, the Persian armies overran the whole of Syria, Egypt, 
and Asia, reaching to the Hellespont, and encamping at 
Chalkedon within sight of Constantinople. The Empire 
was then ruled by Heraclius, one of the greatest names in 
the whole list of Roman Emperors. He had been Exarch 
or Governor of Africa, and had risen to the throne by de- 
stroying PhSkas, who had rebelled and murdered the Em- 
peror Maurice. For a while he seemed to do nothing to stop 
the Persian invasions, but at last he arose ; he restored the 
old discipline of the Roman armies, and in a series of great 
campaigns, from 620 to 628, he altogether broke the Persian 
power, and won back all that Chosroes had conquered. But, 
while the Romans and Persians were thus disputing for the 
dominion of Asia, the Empire was again cut short in the 
West, for the Gothic Kings now won back the Roman pro- 
vince in Spain; and it was presently cut short in the East 
in a far more terrible way. For a power was now ari.'sing 



VI.] RISE OF MAHOMET. 115 



which was to overthrow the Persians and Goths altogether, 
and to strike a deadly blow at the power of Rome. 

4. Rise of the Saracens. — We now come to the rise of a 
great Semitic power, the only Semitic power which has played 
any great part in history since the time of the great dominion 
of Carthage. For it must not be forgotten that the Persians, 
though so widely cut off from their Western brethren, were just 
as much Aryans as the Italians, Greeks, or Teutons. We 
also come to the rise of a new religion, the last of three great 
religions which have come out from among the Semitic 
nations, and all of • which taught men that there is but 
one God, and bade them to keep from the worship of idols. 
First came Judaism, then Christianity, and now the religion 
of Mahomet, Mahomet was an Arab of Mecca, the holy city 
of Arabia, where he was born in 569. He gave himself out 
for a prophet, and taught that, though both the Jewish and 
the Christian religion were sent from God, yet he had himself 
received a revelation more perfect than either. In his ov\^n 
country there can be no doubt that Mahomet was a great 
reformer. He swept away the idolatry of the Arabs ; he greatly 
reformed their laws and manners, and gathered their scattered 
tribes into one nation. In his early days he had to bear much 
persecution ; but, as he grew powerful, he began to teach that 
his new religion was to be forced upon all men by the sword. 
So the Arabs, or Saracens as they are also called, as soon as 
they had embraced the faith of Mahomet, held it to be their 
duty to spread their faith everywhere, which in fact meant to 
conquer the whole world. They everywhere gave men the 
choice of three things, Koran, tribute, or sword j that is, 
they called on all men either to believe in Mahomet and to 
accept the Koran, a book which contained his revelations, 
to submit to the Saracens and pay tribute, or else to 
fight against them if they could. By these means the 
religion of Mahomet was spread over a large part of Asia 

I 2 



li6 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST. [chap. 

and Africa, and we shall see that it made its way into 
Europe also. As Christianity became the religion of the 
Empire and of the nations which learned their civihzation 
from either the Old or the New Rome, so Mahometanism 
gradually became the religion of most of those nations beyond 
the Empire with which our history has much to do. We may 
call it the religion of the East^ as far as we have to do with 
the East, just as Christianity is the religion of the West. It 
has spread at different times as far as from Spain to India. 
The people of all the countries conquered by the Saracens 
and other Mahometan powers had either to embrace the Ma- 
hometan religion or else to buy the right to practise their own, 
whether Christian or heathen, by the payment of tribute. 

5. Wars of the Saracens and Romans. — As soon as all 
Arabia had been joined together under the authority of 
Mahomet, he and his followers began to spread their 
power over the neighbouring countries ; that is, of course, 
mainly over the dominions of Rome and Persia. Mahomet 
himself died in 632, before any serious attack was made 
upon either, and he was succeeded in his power by rulers 
called his Caliphs or Stcccessors, the first of whom was his 
father-in-law Abti-Bekr. The Caliphs were at once spiritual 
and temporal rulers, much the same as if in Christendom the 
same man had been Pope and Emperor at once. Under the 
first two Caliphs Abu-Bekr and Omar^ the Roman provinces 
of Syria and Egypt were conquered between the years 632 
and 639. Now it should be remembered that these two were 
the provinces in which Greek and Roman civilization had 
never thoroughly taken root, where the mass of the people 
still kept their old languages, and where men were always 
falling away into forms of belief which were counted here- 
itcal according to the faith both of the Old and New Rome. 
In these provinces therefore men may well have deemed 
.iiat they had httle to lose by a change ot nj^et?. It fol- 



Vl.j CONQUESTS OF THE SARACENS. 117 

lowed then that, though the Saracens had to fight several 
hard battles against the Roman armies in Syria, yet they met 
with no general resistance of the whole people, and in Egypt 
they met with no resistance at all. The great cities of 
Antioch and Alexandria^ as well as Jerttsalem^ were thus 
lost to the Empire. But in the lands on this side of Mount 
Tauros, where the influence of Greek culture and Roman 
law was more deep and abiding, the Saracens never gained 
any lasting footing. They often invaded the country, and 
twice, in 673 and 716, they besieged Constantinople itself, 
but they made no abiding conquests. In Africa too, which 
had been far more thoroughly Romanized than Syria and 
Egypt, they met with a long resistance. Their invasions 
began in 647, but Carthage was not taken till 698, and the 
whole country was not fully subdued till 709. From no part 
of the Empire have all traces either of the Roman dominion 
or of the Teutonic settlement of the Vandals been so utterly 
swept away as from Africa. From Africa in 710 they 
crossed into Spain, and in about three years they subdued 
the whole land, except where the Christians still held 
out in the mountain fastnesses of the North. They con- 
quered also a small part of Gaul, namely the province at 
Narbonne. But this was the end of their conquests in 
Western Europe. In 732 they were defeated in the great 
battle of Tours by the Frank Charles Martel, of whom we 
shall presently hear again. In 755 they were altogether 
driven out of Gaul, but it took more than seven hundred 
years more to drive them out of the whole of Spain. 

6. The Saracen Conquests in the East. — The Saracens 
thus lopped off the Eastern and Southern provinces of the 
Empire, so that the Romans no longer held anything in 
Africa, nor anything in Asia beyond Mount Tauros. Mean- 
while they were pressing on with equal vigour against the 
other great empire of Persia. In about nineteen years, 



Ii8 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST. [chap. 

from 632 to 651, the whole kingdom of Persia was con- 
quered, and the native dynasty of the Sassanides, which 
had reigned in Persia since the time of Artaxerxes, came 
to an end. Persia now gradually became a Mahometan 
country. The Saracens thence pressed northwards and 
eastwards into Siiid, the most western part of India, and 
into the Turkish lands beyond the Oxus. For a short time 
the whole of this vast dominion held together, and a single 
Caliph was obeyed in Spain and in Sind. But, before 
long, disputes and civil wars arose among the Saracens 
themselves, as to the right succession of the Caliphate, 
and in 755 their empire was divided, and was never 
joined together again. One Caliph reigned in Spain, 
another at Damascus and afterwards at Bagdad, each giving 
himself out to be the true successor of Mahomet. Mean- 
while in the East the Turkish tribes were pressing into the 
Saracenic empire very much in the same way in which the 
Teutonic tribes had pressed into the Empire of Rome. The 
governors of the different provinces gradually made them- 
selves independent, and various dynasties, chiefly Turkish, 
arose, whose obedience to the Caliph at Bagdad became quite 
nominal. Various sects also arose among the Mahometans, 
just as they arose among the Christians, and each sect looked 
on the others as heretics. But those who gave themselves 
out as the orthodox followers of Mahomet always looked up 
to the Caliph at Bagdad. So the Caliphs may be looked on 
as keeping something like the power of a Pope after they had 
lost that of an Emperor. 

7. The Loss of Italy. — The descendants oi Heradius went 
on reigning till^ about the end of the seventh century. Then 
came a time of confusion, till at last, in 718, the Empire fell 
to a valiant man named Leo, a native of Isauria, whose de- 
scendants reigned after him till the beginning of the ninth 
century. The second siege of Constantinople by the Saracens 



VI.] LOSS OF ITALY. 119 

was then going on, and it was mainly owing to his valour 
and wisdom that the invaders were beaten back. This defeat 
of the Saracens by Leo is really one of the greatest events of 
the world's, history ; for, if Constantinople had been taken 
by the Mahometans before the nations of Western Europe 
had at all grown up, it would seem as if the Christian religion 
and European civilization must have been swept away from 
the earth. But, if Leo thus secured the Empire towards the 
East, his conduct in religious matters did much to weaken 
its power in the West. Though Spain and Africa had been 
lost, the Emperors still kept Ro7ne and all that part ot 
Italy which was not conquered by the Lombards, as well 
as all the great islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. 
The Italian possessions of the Empire were ruled by 
an Exarch or governor, who lived, not at Rome but at 
Ravenna. Thus, as neither the Emperor nor his deputy 
lived at Rome, the power of the Popes or Bishops of 
Rome grew greater and greater. At last, during the reign oi 
Leo, another religious dispute broke out, about the worship 
or reverence paid to images and pictures in churches. This 
worship Leo held to be idolatrous, and so did his son Con- 
stantine, called Kopronymos, who succeeded him and reigned 
from 741 to 775, and who also was a valiant warrior against 
the Saracens. The party who thought with them were called 
Iconoclasts or breakers of images, and there were constant 
disputes about this matter in the Eastern Church all through 
the eighth and part of the ninth centuries. But in Italy, 
when the Emperors tried to put away the worship and even 
the use of images, men everywhere withstood them, the Popes 
Gregory the Second and Gregory the Third taking the lead 
against them. The result was that the Emperors lost all 
real power in Rome. But they kept Southei'n Italy iot 
a long time afterwards, and even at Rome their authority 
was acknowledged in name down to the end of the eighth 



I20 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST. [chap. 

century. We must now see how even its formal acknow- 
ledgement came to an end. 

8. The Franks in Italy. — Meanwhile the Lombards were 
extending their dominion in Italy. Under their Kings 
Liudprand and Astolf^ they took Ravenna and more than 
once threatened Rome. There was no hope of any help 
coming from the Emperors at Constantinople ; so the Popes 
and the Roman people sought for help in quite a new 
quarter, namely at the hands of Pippin the King of the 
Franks. The Fra7iks had now long been the ruling people 
of Germany and Gaul. The descendants of Chlodwig^ the 
German King and Roman Consul, went on reigning, though 
their dominions were often divided into several small 
kingdoms, and in the south of Gaul, especially in Aqidtaine^ 
they had but little real power. These descendants of Chlod- 
wig, the Merwings or Merowingians as they were called, 
were one of the worst dynasties that ever reigned ; few parts 
of history are more full of crimes, public and private, than 
the accounts of the early Frankish Kings. Latterly they 
became weak as well as wicked, and all real power passed 
into the hands of the Karlings, who governed by the title 
of Mayors of the Palace. They came fi'om the Eastern, the 
most German, part of the Frankish dominions, and their rise 
to power was almost like another German conquest of Gaul, 
One of these Mayors was Karl or Charles^ called Martel or 
the Hammer^ who won the great victory over the Saracens at 
Tours in 732, He was succeeded by his son Pippin:^ who in 
753 was chosen King of the Franks, the Merowingian King 
Chilperic being deposed, for it was thought foolish that the 
title of King should belong to one man and the kingly power 
to another. Thus began the dynasty of the Karlings, the 
sons of Charles, the second Frankish dynasty in Germany 
and Gaul. Of their doings in Germany and Gaul we shall 
speak presently; we have now to do with them in Italy. King 



VT.] THE FRANKS. 121 

Pippin came at the prayer of Pope Stephen the Third, and 
saved Rome from the Lombards and won back from them the 
Exarchate, that is the country about Ravenna, which they 
had conquered. He became the virtual sovereign of the city; 
but, as it was still not thought right wholly to throw away the 
authority of the Emperors, he was called, not King or Emperor, 
but Patrician. That word had quite changed its meaning 
since it had meant the highest class of the Roman people ; 
it was now used rather vaguely, and it sometimes meant the 
governor of a province ; this last must have been the sense 
in which they used it now. Pippin's son, Karl or Charles the 
Gi'eat, altogether conquered the Lombard kingdom in 774. 
He then called himself Ki7ig of the Franks and Lojnbards 
and Patrician of the Romajis. As such, he was ruler of all 
Italy, except the part in the south which the Emperors still 
kept. The Franks were thus the head people in all Western 
Christendom. 

9. Charles elected Emperor. — But a greater honour still 
was in store for the Franks and their King. In 792, the 
Emperor Constantine the Sixth, the grandson of Con- 
stantine Kopronymos, was deposed by his mother Eiren^, 
who put out his eyes and reigned in his stead. This gave 
the Pope and the people of Rome a good excuse for throw- 
ing off the authority of the Emperors at Constantinople 
altogether. They now said that a woman could not be 
Caesar and Augustus, and that the Old Rome had as good 
a right to choose the Emperor as the New. So in the 
year 8cxd the Romans of the Old Rome chose their Patrician 
Charles to be Emperor, and he was crowned by Pope Leo as 
Charles Augustus, Emperor of the Rojnans. The Empire was 
now finally divided, and for many ages there was one Emperor 
reigning in the East and another in the West, each claiming 
to be the true Roman Emperor. The Eastern Emperors never 
•got back Rome again, nor any part of Northern Italy, but they 



122 THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST. [CH. vi. 

kept their dominions in Southern Italy, where the Greek 
tongue was still not wholly forgotten, for more than two 
hundred years longer. 

lo. Summary. — Thus, through the sixth, seventh, and 
eighth centuries, there was only one Emperor, who reigned 
at Constantinople. Under Justinian a very large part ot 
"the Empire was won back again from the Goths and 
Vandals. But, in the course of the sixth and seventh cen- 
turies, a great part of the recovered provinces, together with 
Syria and Egypt, were lost again. The Lombards established 
themselves in Italy ^ and the Saracens overthrew the kingdom 
of Persia, conquered the Eastern and African provinces of 
Rome, and established themselves in Spain. In the eighth 
century the dispute about images led to the gradual separa- 
tion of Rotne and what was left to the Empire in Northern 
Italy, and in its last year Rome parted off altogether from 
the Eastern Empire, and chose the Frank Charles as separate 
Emperor of the West* 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FRANKISH EMPIRE. 

Division of the Empire; the Western Empire held by the Prankish 
Kings (i) — the Ommiad Caliphs ; accession of the Abbassides (2)— 
division of the Caliphate ; relations between the two Caliphates and 
the two Empires (2) — conquests and losses of the Saracens (2) — 
reign of Charles the Great ; extent of his Empire (3) — division of 
the Erankish Kingdoms ; Kingdoms of Germany, Lotharingia, 
Karolingia, Burgundy, and Italy; different meanings of the 
word Francia {i^— final division of the Empire; end of the 
Karlings in Germany {$)—Odo King of the West- Franks ; shift- 
ing of the Kingdom between Laon and Paris (6) — Duchies of 
Prance, Burgundy, and Aquitaine ; distinction between Norther-n 
and Southern Gaul [6]— Hugh Capet elected King; beginning of 
the modern Kingdom of Prance (6) — settlements of tiie English in 
Britain; their conversion to Christianity {f)—the Northmen; 
their invasions of Gaul and Britain (8) — supremacy of Wessex in 
Britain ; invasion and settlements of the Danes ; formation of the 
Kingdom of England {^)— settlements of the Northmen in Gaul; 
settlement of Rolf at Rouen; grozvth of the Duchy of Normandy 
(10) — Summary (11). 

I. The Division of the Empire. — The Roman Empire was 
now finally divided, and it might seem to have altogether 
passed away from the true Romans. The Emperors of 
the West from this time were Germans; they did not live 
much at Rome itself, and their native language was German, 
though Latin remained the language of law, government, and 
religion. In the Eastern Empire the tongue commonly spoken 



124 THE PRANKISH EMPIRE. [chap. 

was Greek ; Latin had gone out of use even as an official 
language ; and, from the time of the loss of Rome and Ravenna, 
the Roman Empire of the East answered pretty well to those 
parts of Europe and Asia which had thoroughly accepted the 
Greek language and Greek civilization. Still each Empire 
^ave itself out as the continuation of the old Empire, and 
ihe old Imperial titles went on. Only, while in the East the 
Emperor was a Roman Emperor and nothing else, in the 
West the Emperor was King of the Franks as well as Em- 
Oeror of the Roma?ts. In truth, the choice of a German King 
to be Roman Emperor was the greatest of all changes, and 
it was really the beginning of quite a new state of things. 
But men at the time talked as if things had gone regularly on, 
and they spoke of Charles the Great as the lawful successor 
of Constantine the Sixth. From this time then the Western 
Empire, as long as it lasted, for about a thousand years after 
Charles's time, was always held by a Frankish or other 
German King. And in this way, through the union of the 
Roman and German crowns, a large territory was now held 
to belong to the Roman Empire which had never belonged to 
the Empire in old times. And, though the new line of Ger- 
man Emperors lived but little in their old capital of Rome, 
yet, for seven hundred years after the election of Charles, it 
was held that no King had a right to be called Emperor or 
CcBsar till he had been crowned at Rome by the Pope. The 
Eastern Emperors meanwhile kept Constantinople, or the 
New Ro7ne, as their capital, and they were crowned by the 
Patriarchs of Constantinople in the church of Saint Sophia. 

2. Division of the Caliphate. — We mentioned in the last 
:hapter that, about fifty years before the final division of the 
£mpire, the Mahometan power was divided in much the same 
vay. The first four Caliphs, Abu-Bekr, Omar, Othtnan, and 
All, were all among the immediate friends or kinsmen of Ma- 
homet. Then came the dynasty of the Ommiads, who reigned 



VII.] DIVISION OF THE CALIPHATE. 125 

at Damascus. But in 750 they were overthrown by the de- 
scendants of Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet, who founded the 
dynasty of the Abbassides, by whom the seat of their dominion 
was after a while moved to Bagdad on the Tigris. But a prince 
of the Ommiad family, Abd-al-rahmari by name, escaped to 
Spain, and was the founder of the dynasty of the Ommiad 
Caliphs of Cordova. Thus, at the beginning 'of the ninth cen- 
tury, there were two rival Empires among the Christians and 
two rival Caliphates among the Mahometans ; and, as might 
be expected, each of the Christian powers was at enmity with 
the Mahometan power which was its own neighbour and on 
good terms with the Mahometan power at a distance. The 
Cahphs of Cordova were the natural enemies of the Western 
Empire, and the Caliphs of Bagdad were the natural enemies 
of the Eastern Empire. But there was commonly peace and 
friendship between the Western Empire and the Eastern 
Caliphate and between the Eastern Empire and the Western 
Caliphate. And, just as the two Empires not only parted 
asunder from one another, but each split up into various 
kingdoms, so the two Caliphates gradually split up also. 
Many Mahometan powers arose, which professed at most 
a nominal allegiance to the Caliph either at Bagdad or at 
Cordova. And some of these powers went on conquering at 
the expense of the Christians. In the course of the ninth 
century independent Saracen powers arose in the great Medi- 
terranean islands of Sicily and Crete, which had up to that 
time belonged to the Eastern Empire. In Spain itself the 
Saracens never conquered quite the whole of the country, as 
the Christians always maintained their independence in the 
mountains of the North, whence they gradually won the whole 
peninsula back again. In the ninth century then the four great 
powers of the civilized world were the two Christian Empires , 
and the two Mahometan Caliphates. The British Islands were 
independent of all, standing alone in being both Christian and 



126 THE PRANKISH EMPIRE. [chap. 

independent. The other parts of Europe which acknowledged 
neither Emperor nor Cahph were still heathen and barbarous. 
3. Charles the Great. — The first Frankish King who became 
Roman Emperor, the first man of Teutonic blood who was 
called Caesar and Augustus, was, as we have said, Chai'les the 
son of Pippin, called Karolus Magnus or Charles the Great. 
In after times he became a great subject of French romance, 
in which he is called by the French name of Charlemagfie. 
Under him the power of the Franks rose to its highest 
pitch. Fraucia, the land of the Franks^ took in all Central 
Germany and Northern Gaul. Besides this, Charles estab- 
lished the Frankish dominion over Southern Gaul and 
Southern Germany, that is over Aquitaine and Bavaria^ and 
algo over Ar^norzca, the north-western corner of Gaul. Here 
a great number of the Welsh from the Isle of Britain had 
settled when their country was conquered by the English. 
Thus the land was known as the Lesser B7'itain or Britanny, 
and the Celtic language, which had perhaps never quite 
died out, was kept up by their coming. Charles also sub- 
dued the German people to the north of his own Francia. 
that is our own kinsmen, the Saxons who had stayed 
behind in Germany and had not gone into Britain. They 
were still heathens, but he forced them to embrace Chris- 
tianity. He thus became master of all Germany and Gaul. 
And, as we have seen, as Emperor and King of the Lom- 
bards he held the greatest part of Italy, and he had also Spain 
as far as the Ebro. He had also much fighting with the 
nations to the east and north of Germany. To the north lay 
the Scandinavian nations, called the Northmen^ of whom we 
shall have presently to speak more at large. Of these 
Charles had a good deal of fighting with the Danes^ and he 
brought them into some degree of submission to the Empire, 
To the north-east of Germany beyond the Elbe lay the 
Slavonic nations who were spoken of in the first chapter, 



VII.] CHARLES THE GREAT. 127 

who grew up into the different nations of the Wends, the 
Poles, and the Czechs or Boheitiians, all of whom had at 
different times to make submission to the Emperors, and a 
large part of whose country has long formed part of Germany. 
To the south-east were other Slavonic nations who had been 
allowed to settle on the frontiers of the Eastern Empire. 
Between these two branches of the Slaves, in a great part 
of modern Hungary, the Turanian people of the Avars had 
fixed themselves. With all these border nations the Emperor 
Charles had much fighting, and most of them were brought 
into more or less of submission. Under him then the Western 
Empire was at a greater height of power than it had ever 
been since the division after the death of Theodosius, and in 
all his vast dominions Charles did what he could to encou- 
rage learning and religion by promoting learned men, founding 
bishopricks and monasteries, and making laws for the govern- 
ment of his Empire. He first united Germany under one 
head, and he won the rank of Roman Emperor for the Ger- 
man King. Like Constantine and Theodosius, he thought 
of dividing the Empire among his sons, but, as all his sons, 
except Lewis, surnamed the Pious, died before him, the whole 
Empire passed at his death in 814 to that one son Lewis. 

4. The Prankish Kingdoms. — So great a dominion as had 
been brought together under Charles the Great needed a man 
like Charles himself to keep it together. The second Frankish 
Emperor Lewis was a good but weak man, and his sons were 
always rebelling against their father and quarrelling with one 
another. Several divisions of the Empire were made during 
his lifetime, and after his death his dominions were, after 
much fighting, divided in 843 among his sons Lothar, Lewis, 
and Charles. Lothar was Emperor, and, as such, he reigned 
in Italy, and he was meant to have at least a nominal 
supremacy over his brothers. For his own kingdom he took 
Italy and a long narrow strip of territory reaching from the 



128 THE PRANKISH EMPIRE. [chap. 

Mediterranean to the Northern Ocean, and taking in what is 
now Provence at one end and Holland at the other. This 
country, from his name I.othar, was called Lotharingia, and 
part of it still keeps the name in the form of Lothringen or 
Lorraine. Part of his kingdom spoke German and part 
Romance. To the east of him. his brother Lewis, who is called 
the Ger7?ian, reigned over a purely German kingdom, the 
lands between the Rhine and the Elbe. Charles reigned in 
Gaul to the west of Lothar. Charles's kingdon^ was at first 
called Karolingia, just as Lothar's kingdom was called 
Lotharingia, only the one name has gone out of use, while 
the other has remained. But the different kingdoms which 
were now formed had no regular names. All the different 
Kings were Kings of the Franks, much as in earlier times 
there had been several Emperors at once. There now 
came a time of great confusion, during which the different 
kingdoms were split up and joined together again in various 
ways. But there was still always one King who was Emperor, 
though he soon lost all real power over the others. And all 
the Kings were of the house of the Karlings, save only in 
the Burgundian land between the Rhone, the Saone, and the 
Alps, where Kings of other houses reigned, and which was 
called the Kingdom of Burgundy or Aries. At last, in 884, all 
the Frankish kingdoms except Burgundy were joined together 
underthe Emperor Charles the Fat. But in 887 all his kingdoms 
agreed to depose him, and each kingdom chose a King of its 
own. And the kingdoms which were now formed began to 
answer more nearly to real divisions of nations and languages 
than had hitherto often been the case. Thus from this time 
the Eastern and Western Franks were never again united, 
and the word Francia now has two meanings. Eastern 
or Teutonic Francia was the old Frankish land in Ger- 
many, forming part of the Eastern Kingdom. Western 
or Latin Fra7icia was the land between the Loire and the 



VII. ] THE PRANKISH KINGDOMS. 129 

Seine, where men spoke Romance and not German, and 
which formed part of the Western Kingdom. Between 
them lay Lotharingia, the border land, taking in modern 
Belgium. This had no longer a King of its own, but it was 
often disputed between the Eastern and Western Kings, 
the Kings of Germany and Karoli7igia. In South-eastern 
Gaul the Burgundian Kingdom went on, sometimes forming 
one kingdom, sometimes two. And in Italy, during the first 
half of the tenth century, there were several rival Kings, some 
of whom got to be crowned Emperors. But they had no 
power out of Italy, and not much in it. And it must be re- 
membered that all this time Southern Italy still belonged to 
the Eastern Emperors, and that Sicily had been conquered 
by the Saracens. 

5. The End of the Karlings in Germany. — After the division 
in 887 the Eastern or German Kingdom still stayed for a while 
in the family of Charles the Great For the East-Franks 
chose as their King Arnulf, who was a Karling, though not by 
lawful descent. But the Western Franks in Karolingia chose 
Odo, Count of Paris, who had been very valiant in defending 
his city against an attack of the Northmen, of whom we shall 
hear presently. But King Arnulf was the head King, and 
King Odo of Paris did homage to him for his crown ; that 
is, he becam.e his man, and promised to be faithful to him. 
Arnulf afterwards went to Rome and was crowned Emperor. 
But the German crown did not last long among the Karlings. 
The line of Arnulf died out in his son Lewis, called the Child, 
and then the Eastern Kingdom fell to men of other famihes, 
connected with the Karlings only in the female line or not at 
all. From this time the Kingdom of Germany went on as a 
separate kingdom, but we shall soon see that it had a great 
d'^al to do with the other kingdoms which arose out of the 
breaking up of the Frankish Empire. And it had much to 
do in other ways with the Slavonic and Turanian people to 

K 



I30 THE PRANKISH EMPIRE. [chap. 

the East, and in the end it greatly extended itself at the cost 
of its Slavonic neighbours. 

6. Beginning of the Kingdom of France.— After the 
election of Odo of Paris to the Western Kingdom, there 
followed about a hundred years of shifting to and fro between 
his new family and the old family of the Karlings. Some- 
times there was a King of one house and sometimes of the 
other. The Karlings still spoke German, and, when they 
held the kingdom, their capital was Laon, in its north- 
eastern corner. The family of Odo were called Dukes of the 
F'^ench, and they spoke French, as we may now call the 
Romance speech of Northern Gaul, and their capital was 
Paris. Their Duchy, the Duchy of Fr mice — that is, Western 
or Latin Francia—vf^s, even when its Dukes were not Kings, 
the most powerful state north of the Loire. But whichever 
family held the crown, the Kings had very little power south 
of the Loire. For in these times of confusion the Dukes and 
Cotmts, -y^Yio at first were only governors of the different 
provinces, both in the Eastern and Western Kingdoms, had 
grown up into hereditary princes, paying a merely nominal 
homage to the King, whether he reigned at Laon or at Paris. 
The Princes north of the Loire, the Counts of Flanders, the 
Dukes of the Nor7nans (of whom we shall say more presently), 
the native princes of Britanny, and the Dukes of Burgundy, 
were often at war with the Kings, and with one another. 
These Dukes of Burgundy held the northern part of Bur- 
gundy, that of which Dijon is the capital ; this did not form 
part of the Kingdom of Burgundy, but of the Western King- 
dom or Karolingia. South of the Loire, where men spoke, 
not French but Provencal, the Dukes of Aquitaine and Gas- 
cony, and the Counts of Toulouse and Barcelona, had hardly 
anything to do with the Kings at all. The most famous 
among the Karolingian* Kings at Laon y^d.^ Lewis the Fourth, 
called From-beyond-sea, because he had been brought up by 



VII.] BEGINNINGS OF FRANCE. 13 1 

his uncle King ^thelstan in England. He had much striv- 
ing with Hugh the Great, Duke of the French, the nephew 
of King Odo, who refused the crown niore than once, but 
who never had any scruple about rebelling against the 
King. But on the death of the last Karolingian King ar 
Laon, Lewis the Fifth, Hugh Capet, the son of Hugh the 
Great, was chosen King in 987. This was the real beginning 
of the modern Kingdom of France. The Duke of the Frencn 
was now Ki7ig of the French. Paris became the capital 
of the Kingdom, and, as the Kings of the French got hold of 
the lands of their vassals and neighbours, bit by bit, the 
name of France was gradually spread, as it is now, over the 
greater part of Gaul. 

7, The English in Britain. — We have thus seen how the 
kingdoms and nations of Germany, Italy, Burgundy, and 
France were formed by the breaking up of the great Frankish 
Empire. Meanwhile the English nation was growing up 
in the Isle of Britain, which formed no part of the Empire, 
and which men often spoke of as a world of itself. We have 
already seen how the three Low-Dutch tribes, the Angles., 
Saxons, and Jutes, settled in Britain, how they drove the 
Britojts or Welsh into the western part of the Island, and how, 
as they gradually became one people, the whole nation was 
called Angles or English. They formed a great number of 
principalities in Britain, among the chief of which were the 
Kingdom of the Jutes in Ke7it, the oldest of all, the Kingdom 
of the West-Saxons, which began in what is now Hamp- 
shire and gradually spread over all South-western Britain, 
the Kingdom of the Mercians in the middle of England, 
and the Kingdom of the Northumbrians which, sometimes 
under one King, sometimes under two, stretched from 
the Humber to the Firth of Forth. The Kingdoms of 
the South-Saxons, East-Saxons, and East-Angles should 
also be noticed, but they were less powerful than the other 

K 2 



132 THE PRANKISH EMPIRE. [chap. 

four. All these kingdoms had much fighting with one another, 
as well as with the Britons or Welsh to the west of them and 
with the other Celtic tribes of the Picts and Scots to the north 
beyond the Forth Sometimes one of their Kings gained a 
certain authority over the other kingdoms ; he was then called 
SiBretwalda or Wielder of Britain. As we have already said, 
the English remained heathens for about one hundred and 
fifty years after their first settlement in Britain. Then, in 597, 
Pope Gregory the Great sent over Augustine, who converted 
the Kentish King jiEthelberht or Ethelbert, who was then Bret- 
walda ; so Kent was the first Christian kingdom among the 
English. Gradually all the English kingdoms were converted, 
some by missionaries from Kent or straight from Rome, 
some by the Scots, who were already Christians, but none, it 
would seem, by the Welsh. And presently the English began 
themselves to send missionaries to convert those of their 
kinsfolk in their old land who were still heathens. One of 
them, Wiftfrith or Boniface, in the time of Pippin, was called 
the Apostle of Gerinany. This was quite another way of 
being converted from that of the Goths and Franks who em- 
braced Christianity while they were pressing into the Empire. 
But, even after they became Christians, the English still went 
on making conquests from the Welsh, and also carrying 
on wars among themselves. During the seventh and 
eighth centuries the three great kingdoms of the West- 
Saxons, Mercians, and Northtimbrians were ever striving 
for the mastery. Sometimes one had the upper hand 
and sometimes the other ; but at the beginning of the 
ninth century the different English kingdoms began to be 
more closely united together, and they had also a common 
enemy from without to withstand. 

8. The Northmen. — We have already spoken of the 
Aryan people in Northern Europe, called the Northmen 
or Scandinavians These were a Teutonic people, whose 



VII.] THE ENGLISH AND NORTHMEN. 133 

speech is more nearly akin to the Low-Dutch than to the 
High. They had settled in the great peninsula to the north- 
east of the Baltic, where they were gradually making their 
way against the Turanian inhabitants, the Fins and Laps^ 
and they had also occupied the peninsula called the Cimbric 
Chersonesos or Jutland^ which is divided from Saxony by 
the river Eider. In these peninsulas and the neighbouring 
islands they gradually formed three kingdoms, those of Nor- 
way, Sweden^ and Denmark, The Danes in the southern 
peninsula had often to yield more or less of submission to 
Charles the Great and his successors. But the Northmen of 
the northern peninsula never submitted to the Empire, and 
indeed the Swedes had for a long time to come but little 
to do with the general affairs of Europe. They had enough 
to do in striving with their own Turanian neighbours, and 
in conquests toward the East, where they came to bear 
rule over the Slavonic land of Russia. But the Western 
Scandinavians, the Danes and the Norwegians who were 
more specially called North7nen, began, towards the end 
of the eighth century, to be fearful scourges both to Britain 
and to all the coasts of the Empire. Even while Charles 
the Great lived, they had begun to sail about and plunder 
in various parts ; and after he was dead, and when the 
Empire began to break in pieces, they were able to 
ravage almost wherever they pleased. After a while they 
began, not only to plunder, but to make settlements, both 
in Gaul and in Britain. They also settled in Iceland^ 
in the Orkneys and in the other islands near Scotland, 
in the northern part of Scotland itself, and in the towns 
on the east coast of Ireland. But we have most to do 
with their settlements in England and in Northern GauL 
For through their settlement in Gaul a new power in 
Europe arose, and, what we should hardly have looked 
for, their settlements in England had a great deal to do 



134 THE PRANKISH EMPIRE. [cHAP. 

with the making of the different English kingdoms in Britain 
into one. 

9. Formation of the Kingdom of Eng2and. — We have 
seen that, up to the end of the eighth century, the chief power 
among the Enghsh in Britain was always passing from one 
of the English kingdoms to another. But at the beginning 
of the ninth century it came permanently into the hands of 
Wessex. This was under Ec^berht or Egbert^ who was King 
of the West-Saxons from 802 to 837. He was a friend of 
Charles the Great, with whom he had taken shelter when he 
was banished from his own country. It was no doubt the 
friendship and example of Charles which set him upon doing 
in Britain much the same as Charles had done in Germany. 
Ecgberht gradually brought all the other English kingdoms, 
and the Welsh both of Cor7iwall and of what we call PVales, 
into more or less of subjection to his own Kingdom of the 
West-Saxons. Other Kings went on reigning, but they were his 
men and he was their lord, like the Emperor among the Kings 
and princes on the mainland. Thus a great step was taken 
towards joining all the English in Britain into one kingdom. 
But the Scots beyond the Forth and the Northern Welsh in 
Cuinberlaiid and thereabouts remained independent, so that 
Ecgberht was still far from being master of the whole island, 
and presently the Danish invasion seemed likely to shatter 
the newly founded West-Saxon power altogether. King 
JElfred or Alfred, the grandson of Ecgberht and the most 
famous of ancient English Kings, who began to reign in 871, 
had much fighting with the Danes. The northern part of 
England was conquered by them, and Danish Kings and 
Earls reigned at York. Presently they invaded Wessex, 
whence they were driven out by Alfred in 878. But he found 
it needful to make a treaty with the Danish King Gutkrum, 
by which Guthrum was allowed to hold all the eastern part 
of England, on condition of becoming King Alfred's man 



VII.] BEGINN-JNG OF NORMANDY. 135 

and also becoming a Christian. For the Danes were still 
heathens, as the English v/ere when they first came into 
Britain, and they seem to have taken special delight in de- 
stroying the churches and monasteries. The Kings who came 
after Alfred, his son Edward and his grandsons ^thelstan 
and Edmund, had much fighting with the Danes in Britain. 
But at last they were able to bring all the Teutonic people in 
Britain, both English and Danish, into one kingdom ; so they 
were called A'zV/^j- of the English and not merely Kings of the 
West-Saxons. And all the princes of the Welsh and of the 
Scots also became their men, so that they were Lords of all 
Britain. Sometimes, as being lords of the other world where 
the Roman Emperors had no power, they were called Em- 
perors of Britain, or in Greek Basileus, in imitation of the 
Emperors of the East. It was King Edward who first 
received the homage of all Britain in 924. But it was not 
till a long time after that the Danes in the North of England 
were thoroughly subdued. But these settlements of the Danes, 
by breaking up the other English kingdoms and by making 
Englishmen everywhere ready to join against the invaders, 
really did much to help the West- Saxon Kings in winning 
the lordship of the whole island. 

10. Foundation of the Duchy of Normandy. — The Danes 
and other Northmen also made many invasions of Gaul 
through the whole latter half of the ninth century. They 
more than once sailed up the Seine and besieged Paris. 
There was one specially famous siege of Paris in 885, 
when Count Odo did great things in withstanding the 
Northmen, in reward of which he was before long, as we 
have seen, elected King. Soon after this the Northmen 
began to make settlements in Gaul as they did in Britain, 
md one of their settlements rose to great importance. 
This was the settlement made at Roue7t by a chief named 
Rolf or in Latin Rollo. This was in 913, when Charles 



136 THE PRANKISH EMPIRE. [chap. vn. 

the Simple^ who was King of the West- Franks — he was 
of the House of the Karhngs and reigned at Laon — and 
Robiirt, Duke of the French, who was brother of King 
Odo and was afterwards King himself, granted the land at 
the mouth of the Seine to Rolf. For this he became King 
Charles' man, and he served his lord much more faithfully 
than ever the Dukes of the French did. Rolf was baptized, 
as Guthrum had been, and the Northmen who settled in Gaul 
gradually became Christians and learned to speak French. 
Their name was softened into Nor7naiis, and their land was 
called Normandy, and their prince the Duke oj the Normans. 
The Dukes of the Normans of the House of Rolf became 
the most powerful princes in Northern Gaul, and we shall 
presently hear of them in England. 

II. Summary. — Thus, in the course of the ninth and tenth 
centuries the great Prankish Einpire broke in pieces ; the 
Kingdom of France arose in Gaul ; the Kingdom of England 
grew up in Britain ; the Danes and North?nen settled both in 
Britain and in Gaul, and their settlement in Gaul grew into 
the Dtichy of No7'7na7idy, During this time the Romafice 
languages had hardly begun to be written, but men were 
finding out that they were distinct languages from Latin. 
Books on the Continent were still wholly written in Latin. 
Thus Eginhard, the secretary of Charles the Great, wrote 
the Life of his master, and there wer-e other good writers 
of history in all the Frankish kingdoms. But in England 
the English Chronicle began to be put together in these 
tirries, so that the English have, what no other people in 
Western Christendom has, their own history written in their 
own tongue from the beginning. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SAXON EMPERORS. 

The Kingdom of Germany ; dealings with the Magyars and Slaves 
(l) — the Saxon Kings ; victories of Henjy the Fowler and Otto 
the Great over the Magyars (2) — Otto the Great crowned Fmperor ; 
relations between the Empire and the German Kingdom (2, 3) — 
the later Saxon Emperors (3) — disputes between the Eastern and 
Westei'n Churches (4) — the Macedonian Emperors in the East ; 
their victories over the Saracens (4) — Slavonic settlements in the 
Eastern Empire ; wars with the Rtissians and Bulgarians {<^) — 
greatness of England under Edgar (6) — Danish invasions of 
England ; reign of Cmit in England [b) — greatness of the Scan- 
dinavian nations ; great dominion of Cnut ; effects of the Scandi- 
navian settlements in Gaul and Russia (6, 7) — conversion of the 
Scandinavians and Russians to Christianity (7) — Summary (8). 

I. The German Kingdom. — The division of 887 separated 
for ever the Kingdoms of the East and West Franks, those 
which answer to Germany and France. But the Kingdoms of 
Italy and Burgundy were, after a while, once more united 
with Germany. But this was not just yet. The Kings of the 
East-Franks, the Eastern Kings as they were called, were the 
head Kings, but as yet they only held their own land, the 
Teittonic Kingdom or Germany. They had much ado to 
defend themselves against the inroads of the Danes, to 
defend and extend their border against the Slaves to the 
north-east, and to drive back some new and fearful 
enemies who had begun to show themselves to the south- 



138 THE SAXON EMPERORS. [chap. 

east. These were the Magyars or Hungarians, of whom 
we have already spoken, who were pressing into Central 
Europe, and who, wherever they came, did as much mischief 
by land as the Northmen did by sea. They were still 
heathens, but in the end, before the tenth century was out, 
they became Christians, and settled down into a regular and 
powerful Christian kingdom. They have held their place 
among the kingdoms of Europe ever since, and their land is 
still called the Kingdom of Himgary. But, before the Hun- 
garians had thus settled down among Christian nations, the 
German Kings had to fight many battles against them to 
keep them out of their own dominions. As a safeguard 
against the Hungarian invasions they founded a Mark or 
border-state under a chief called a Markgraf or Marquess; 
this was called the Eastei'n Mark, Ostmark or Oesterreich. 
This grew into the Duchy of Austi^ia, the Dukes of which 
have, oddly enough, for a long time past been also Kings 
of Hungary. To the north of Hungary several Slavonic 
states grew up during this time into Christian dukedoms 
and kingdoms, especially those of Poland and Bohemia; but 
the Wends on the south of the Baltic remained heathens 
for a long time, and the Prussians to the east of them for a 
longer time still. Thus the Kingdom of Gennany was the 
central state of Europe, and it had to do with all parts of 
Europe, East, West, North, and South. And it was soon to 
rise to greater things still. 

2. The Saxon Kings. — The dynasty which had most to 
do with raising the German Kingdom to greatness was that 
of the Saxons, whose Duke, Henry the Fowler, was elected 
King in 918. He did much to make his kingdom flourish- 
ing and powerful, and he had to wage many wars against 
the Magyars. He was succeeded in 936 by his son Otto, 
called the Great. He finally defeated the Magyars in a 
great battle in 954. He had also much to do with the 



VIII.] RESTORATION OF THE EMPIRE. 139 

affairs of the Western Kingdom, and he often stepped in 
to help the Karolingian King Lewis, who was his brother- 
in-law, against his enemies in France and Normandy. But 
he is most famous for again uniting the Roma7i Empire to 
the Germajt Kingdom. Since Arnulf no Emperor had been 
generally acknowledged, though some of the Kings of Italy 
had been crowned Emperors at Rome. In truth, Italy, 
during the whole half of the tenth, century, was altogether 
torn in pieces by the struggles of rival Kings and wicked 
Popes. In 951 Otto was invited into Italy, and he made 
the King Berengar become his man. In 962 he was again 
called on by the Pope and the Italians to deliver them from 
Berengar altogether. So he entered Italy a second time, 
and was crowned Emperor at Rome, by the Pope yohn the 
Twelfth, one of the worst of all the Popes. 

3. The Restoration of the Empire. — The coronation of 
Otto the Great as Emperor put the Western Empire on quite 
a new footing. Hitherto the Empire had had no special 
connexion with any one of the several kingdoms which had 
arisen out of the break-up of the dominion of Charles the 
Great. The Imperial crown had been sometimes held by 
one King, and sometimes by another, and very often there 
had been no Emperor at all. But now Germany had, under 
the Saxon Kings, become so much the greatest of all the 
Frankish kingdoms that it was able to join the Empire 
permanently to itself The change was in truth a restora- 
tion of the Empire in a more regular shape after a time 
of confusion. From this time it was held that whoever 
was chosen King in Germany had a right to be crowned 
King of Italy at Milan, and to be crowned Emperor at 
Rome. There was not always an Emperor, because some 
of the German Kings never got to Rome to be crowned 
Emperors ; but there always was either an Emperor or a 
King who alone had the right to be crowned Emperor. 



I40 THE SAXON EMPERORS. [CHAP. 

Thus the Kingdom of Italy was again united with the King- 
dom of Germany. But both Burgundy and Karolingia or 
the Western Kingdom still remained cut off from the 
Empire, Burgundy for a while and Karolingia for ever. 
Still the Emperors kept a good deal of influence in Bur- 
gundy, and in the Western Kingdom too as long as any 
of the Karlings reigned at Laon. But when the Kingdom 
of France was finally established, when the long line of 
Kings of the French of the blood of Hugh Capet began to 
reign at Paris, France left off having anything to do with 
the Empire at all. Otto the Great died in 972, and after 
him reigned his son Otto the Second till 983. He had wars 
with the Danes, whose King Harold, called Blaatand or 
Bluetooth, he forced to become a Christian, and also with 
the Eastern Emperors in Southern Italy. Then came Otto 
the Third from 983 to 1002. He was called the Wonder of 
the World. His great wish was to make Rome again the 
head of the world and to reign there again, like one of the 
old Emperors. But he died young, and his plans were all 
cut short. Then came Henry the Second, a descendant of 
Henry the Fowler but not of Otto the Great, who was the 
last Saxon Emperor. He died in 1024. 

4. The Eastern Empire. — It is now time to say something 
of what had happened in the East since the election of Charles 
the Great in the West. The Eastern Empire, as I before 
said, was now chiefly confined to the Greek-speaking parts 
of Europe and Asia. And, after the Eastern and Western 
Empires were separated, disputes gradually arose between 
the Eastern and Western Churches. They differed on some 
points both of doctrine and ceremony, but the real ground 
of quarrel was chiefly because the Eastern Church would 
never admit the claims of the Bishops of Rome. The Icono- 
clast controversy went on during a great part of the ninth 
century, but in the end the worshippers of images gained 



VIIl] the eastern emperors. 141 

the day. After Eirene there were several Emperors of differ- 
ent famihes, some of whom were weak men, while others 
ruled well and fought manfully against the Saracens. At 
last, in the latter part of the ninth century, a dynasty arose 
under which the Eastern Empire won back a great deal 
of its former power. This was the Basilian or Macedonian 
dynasty, the first Emperor of which, Basil the First or the 
Macedonian, began to reign in 867. He was a law-giver, 
and under him the Byzantine dominions in Italy were greatly 
increased. But the time when the Eastern Empire reached 
its greatest amount of power after the final division was 
from 963 to 1025. Three Emperors, one after the other, 
Nikephoros Pkokas, John Tziiniskes, sMd^asil th^ Second, 
won back many of the provinces which had been lost. 
The Saracens, as we have already seen, were now cut up 
into many small states, and, though the Caliphs went on, 
they could no longer meet the Emperors on equal terms. 
Nikephoros won back Crete, and both he and John 
Tzimiskes, who murdered him and reigned in his stead, 
waged wars in the East, won back Antioch and other cities 
which had been taken by the Saracens in their first 
conquests, and again carried the Roman frontier to the 
Euphrates. 

5. The Slavonic Invasions, — ^We said at the beginning 
that the Slavonic nations were the last of the great Aryan 
swarms which had pressed into Europe, and that which had 
played the least part in the general affairs of* the world. As 
yet we have not heard much about them, except so far as the 
Germ.an Kings had greatly extended their dominion to the 
West at their expense. But we have now reached a very 
important period in their history, chiefly with regard to their 
dealings with the Eastern Empire. For a long time past 
various nations had been pressing into the northern parts of 
the Byzantine dominions, and the Emperors had constant 



142 THE SAXON EMPERORS. fcilAP. 

wars to wage against enemies on their northern as well as 
on their eastern frontier. Some of them settled within the 
Empire, while others simply invaded and ravaged its pro- 
vinces. Some of these invaders and settlers were Turanians^ 
but many of them belonged to the race of the Slaves., who 
play a part in the history of the Eastern Empire something 
like that which the Teutonic people played in the "West. 
That is to say, they were half conquerors, half disciples. 
Many of the north-western provinces of the Empire were 
settled by Slavonic tribes, who have grown into the people 
of Servia, Dahnatia, and the other lands now bordering on 
Hungary, Austria, and Turkey. They even made large 
settlements in Macedonia and Greece, but from some of 
these they were afterwards driven out. It is even said that 
the Macedonian Emperors themselves were really of Slavonic 
descent. The Russians, also a Slavonic people, though their 
princes were of Scandinavian descent, made several inroads 
into the Eastern Empire in the ninth and tenth centuries, 
and even attacked Constantinople by sea. But they were 
finally defeated by the Emperor John Tzimiskes in 973. 
Another great enemy was the Bulgarians, a people originally 
Turanian, but who learned to speak a Slavonic language, 
and who were so mixed up with their Slavonic neighbours and • 
subjects that they may pass as one of the Slavonic nations. 
They founded a kingdom in the north-western part of the 
Empire, and they were for a long time a great thorn in the 
sides of the Emperors. With these Bulgarians the Emperors 
had many wars, till in the end their kingdom was altogether 
destroyed by Basil the Second, who was called the Slayer of 
the Bulgarians, when the Roman frontier was again carried 
to the Danube. All these invaders and settlers gradually 
became Christians, getting their Christianity from the 
Eastern Church, as the Teutons and Western Slaves got 
theirs from the Western Church. But the Popes and the 



VIII.] DANISH CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 143 



Patriarchs of Constantinople had long disputes about the 
obedience of the Bulgarians. It was under Basil the Second, 
whose sister Theophano married the Western Emperor Otto 
the Second, that the separate Eastern Empire was at the 
greatest height of its power, but after his death it greatly- 
fell back again. 

6. England and the Danes. — England had a good deal to 
do with the Western Empire during the time of the Saxon 
Emperors. The daughters of Edward the Elder were 
married to the chief Princes of Europe, and one of them 
named Eadgyth or Edith was the first wife of Otto the Great. 
It marks the central position of the German Kingdom that 
its Kings made marriages with England at one end and with 
Constantinople at the other. Under Edgar, who reigned 
from 959 to 975, England was at the height of its power, 
but in the reign of his son AUthelred the inroads of the 
Danes and Northmen began again. At one time, in 994, 
England was attacked at once by Olaf King of the North- 
men and by Sivegen or Sweyn King of the Danes. Olaf 
was persuaded to become a Christian and to make peace 
with England ; so he went home to Norway and began 
to bring in Christianity there. Swegen was the son of that 
King Harold who had been overcome by Otto the Second; he 
had been baptized in his childhood, but had fallen back into 
heathenism. The war with Swegen went on till at last, in 
ioi3,yEthelredwas driven out and Swegen was acknowledged 
King over all England, This was quite another kind of con- 
quest from mere plundering inroads, and even from settle- 
ments in parts of the country, like that of Guthrum or that 
of Rolf in Gaul. A King of all Denmark came against 
England to make himself King over all England also. 
Swegen died very soon and ^thelred did not live long after. 
The war then went on between Cnut or Canute the son of 
Swegen and Edmund the son of ^thelred. At last, in 



144 THE SAXON EMPERORS. [chap. 

1017, Cnut became King over all England ; he inherited 
the crown of his native country Denmark, and he also 
won Norway and part of Sweden. He was thus lord of 
all Northern Europe, and was by far the most powerful 
prince of his time. Though he came into England by 
force, he ruled Avell and won the love of the people ; but 
after his death in 1035 the bad government of his sons 
disgusted the English with the Danish rule, and in 1042 
they again chose a native King in the person of Edward the 
son of yEthelred. 

7. Greatness of the Scandinavians. — The time when Cnut 
reigned in England was the time when the Danes and 
Northmen were at the height of their power. Denmark^ 
Norway, and Sweden were all powerful kingdoms ; England 
was under a Danish King, and princes of Scandinavian descent 
ruled both in Normandy and in Russia. But wherever the 
Northmen settled, though they always put a new life into the 
lands which they made their own, they showed a wonderful 
power of adapting themselves to the people among whom 
they settled, and of taking to their manners and language. 
Thus Cnut, when he reigned in England, became quite an 
Englishman, and the Northmen who settled in Gaul became 
quite French, and those who settled in Russia became quite 
Slavonic. In this way the original lands of the Northmen 
really lost in strength and importance, and became of less 
account in Europe than they otherwise might have been. 
For the best life of Scandinavia went away into other lands 
to give a new life to them. About the end of the tenth and 
beginning of the eleventh centuries, all the Northern nations, 
except the Prussians and Lithuanians, gradually became 
Christians. The Scandinavians, like the other Teutonic 
nations, got their Christianity from the West ; but the Rus- 
sians, like the Bulgarians and the other nations who had 
to do with the Eastern Empire, got their Christianity from 



<riii.] THE SAXON EMPERORS. 145 

Constantinople and became part of the Eastern Church. 
To this day they are the only one among the great 
nations of Europe which remains in the communion of the 
East, having nothing to do either with the Bishop of Rome 
or with the Reformed Churches. 

8. Summary. — Thus, in the ninth century and the begin- 
ing of the tenth, the German kingdoin advanced, and was 
again united with the Roman Empire. The Eastern Empire 
gained back much of its power, and drove back its Slavonian 
invaders. The Danes conquered England, and the Scandi- 
navian people generally were at the height of their power. 
The chief historians of this period were the German writers 
who recorded the deeds of the Ottos. In England learning 
had got back from what it was at an earlier time. In Gatd 
men had already found out that the Rotnan, or spoken tongue 
of the people, had grown into a different language from the 
written Latin. But we have no French writings as yet. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. 

Secession of Kings, Conrad, Henry the Third, Henry the Fourth^ 
Henry the Fifth (i) — dealings of Henry the Third with the Popes 
(l) — disputes between Henry the Fourth and Gregory the Seventh 
(l) — continued disputes between the Popes and Henry the Fifth (i) 
— causes of the growth of the Papal power (2) — designs of Gregory 
the Seventh ; disputes about investitures and the marriage of the 
clergy {2)—growth of the Duchy of Normandy (3) — reign of 
William the Conqueror ; his claims on the crown of England 
favoured by the Pope (3) — election of Harold of England : invasion 
of Harold of Norway ; Norman invasion and conquest of England 
(2) — effects of the Norman Conquest of England ; use of the 
French langtcage ; closer connexion of England with other lands 
(4) — relations between France and Normandy (5) — effects of the 
Norman Conquest on France ; greatness of Henry the Second in 
England (5) — advance of the Christians in Spain ; growth of the 
kinf^dom of A r agon (6) — Nor?7ian Conqtcest of Sicily ; foundation 
and groivth of the kingdom (7) — decline of the Eastern Empire (8) 
— growth of the Turks ; their dealings with the Caliphs (8) — 
divisions of the Caliphate (8) — wars between tJu lurks and the 
Eastern Empire ; conquests of the Ttirks in Asia Minor (8) — ■ 
revival of the Empire under the Kotnnhtian Emperors ; decay of 
the Turkish power (8) — causes of the Crusades (8, 9) — the Crusade 
preached by Peter the Hermit and Urban the Second (9) — First 
Crusade; taking of Jerusalem (9) — effects of the Crusades (9) — 
Sti7n7Jiary (10). 

1. Succession of Kings. — On the death of Henry the 
Second, Conrad, a descendant of a daughter of Otto the 
Great was chosen King. He was the first of the Franconian 



CH. IX.] THE POPES AND THE EMPERORS. 147 

Emperors. They are so called as coming from the Eastern 
or Teutonic Francia, which, to distinguish it from Latin 
Francia or France, is commonly called Franconia. He was 
crowned Emperor in 1037 and reigned till 1039. The chief 
event of his reign was that in 1032 the Kingdom of Burgundy 
was united to the Empire on the death of its last King Rudolf. 
Thus three of the four Frankish Kingdoms were again joined 
together, France alone, as we must now call it, standing 
aloof. Conrad's son Henry the Third was one of the greatest 
of all the Emperors. He was crowned King both of Germany 
and of Burgundy in his father's lifetime. This was often done 
in those days, in order to make the succession certain, and 
to avoid the dangers of an interregnum or time when there is 
no King. Henry was called into Italy in much the same way 
as Otto the Great had been ; for there were great disputes 
at Rome, three candidates at once all claiming the Popedom. 
King Henry came into Italy in 1046 and deposed them all. He 
then gave the Popedom to several German Bishops one after 
the other, and they ruled the Church far better than the 
Romans had done. He was himself crowned Emperor in the 
same year. He did inuch to restore order and religion both in 
Germ.any and in Italy, and he maintained the authority of the 
Empire better than had been done for a long time. He was 
an ally of the English King Edward, with whom he was con- 
nected by marriage. On his death in 1056 he was succeeded 
by his son Henry the Fourth, who was only six years old 
when his father died, but who had been already crowned 
King. His childhood and youth was a time of great confu- 
sion, and, as he grew up, he ruled at first very ill, and his op- 
pression drove the Saxom-s to revolt in 1073. About the same 
time there arose long disputes between the Emperors and the 
Popes, which tore Germany and Italy in pieces. At one time 
Pope Gregory the Seventh, the famous Hildehrand, professed 
to depose the King, and in the beginning of 1077 Henry had to 



148 THE FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

come and crave pardon of Gregory. In the same year the 
Saxons and others in Germany who were discontented, 
chose Rudolf Duke of Swabia King instead of Henry. 
Rudolf was killed in 1080, but, during nearly all the rest 
of his reign, Henry had to struggle with one enemy after 
another, the last being his own son Henry, whom he 
had crowned King in 1099. Henry himself had driven 
Gregory out of Rome in 1085, and he had been crowned 
Emperor by Cleinsnt the Third, whom he had himselt 
appointed Pope. At last he died in 1106, while still at 
war with his son King Henry, who now reigned alone. 
Henry the Fifth had nearly the same disputes with the 
Popes which his father had had, but he was regularly 
crowned Emperor at Rome in iiii. He married Matilda^ 
the daughter of our King Henry the First, but he had no 
son, and the Franconian dynasty came to an end at his 
death in 1125. 

2. Growth of the Papal Power. — The power of the Popes, 
which has just been mentioned, and their disputes with the 
Emperors, must be spoken of a little more fully. From the 
time of Constantine onwards, the divisions of the Empire 
and the constant absence of the Emperors from Rome had 
greatly increased the power of the Popes. They had not, like 
the Patriarchs of Constantinople, a superior always at hand. 
Charles the Great had fully asserted the Imperial power over 
the Church, but, after his Empire broke up, the power of the 
Popes grew again. It was checked only by their own 
wickedness and their divisions among themselves, which Kings 
like Otto the Great and Henry the Third had to step in and 
put an end to. Things were very different now from what 
they had been in the old times, when the whole or nearly 
the whole of the Church was contained within the bounds 
of the Empire. First of all, there were now two rival 
Emperors and two rival Churches, and the Empire and the 



IX.] GROWTH OF THE PAPAL POWER. 149 

Church of the East in no way acknowledged either the Em- 
peror or the Bishop of the Old Rome. And even in the West, 
part of the Empire, namely the Kingdom of France, had cut 
itself off from the main body, while new Christian kingdoms 
like England, Hungary, and Denmark had risen up beyond 
the Empire. In this state of things the Bishops of Rome, 
who were looked up to by so many kingdoms as the chief 
Bishops of the West, could hardly remain so submissive to 
the Emperors as they had been when the Emperors were 
the only Christian princes. The Popes had not as yet any 
distinct temporal dominion, such as they had in after times ; 
still they were no longer mere subjects of the Emperor, as 
they had been under Constantine or Justinian or Charles the 
Great. In truth, it was to this undefined position that the 
Popes owed much of their power. And now Gj^egorv 
the Seventh, the greatest of all the Popes, set himself 
to work to establish the ecclesiastical power as superior 
to the temporal. To this end he laid down two main 
rules, one that the clergy might not marry, the other that 
no temporal prince should bestow any ecclesiastical bene- 
fice, as was then commonly done in Germany, England, 
and most parts of Europe. Hence began the long quarrel 
between Gregory and Henry the Fourth, and between many 
Popes and Emperors after them. And we may mark that 
the quarrel between the Popes and the Emperors was one in 
which good men might and did take either side. A good 
Emperor like Henry the Third did much good by clearing 
away unworthy disputants, and giving to the Church a succes- 
sion of worthy rulers. But the same power in the hands of a 
bad prince led to the sale of bishopricks for money and to 
many other abuses. The great evil was that Popes like 
Gregory the Seventh, who were really anxious for the purity 
of the Church, acted too much as if the Church were made 
up only of the clergy, and strove to make the clergy, with 



I50 THE FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

themselves at their head, into quite a separate body from 
other men. It is hard to say which party won in the end. 
We may perhaps say that the Popes did succeed in over- 
throwing the power of the Emperors, but that they had 
themselves to yield in the end to the power of other temporal 
princes. 

3. The Norman Conquest of England. — We have already 
seen how in 987 the dynasty of the Karlings in the West 
came to an end, and how Hugh, the Duke of the French, 
became King of the French. Meanwhile the Duchy founded 
by Rolf had grown up into great power and prosperity, and 
Nor7nandy reckoned among the chief states of Western 
Europe. And Normandy became greater still under its 
famous Duke William^ who subdued England, and who is 
therefore known as William the Conqueror. It was now 
that England, which had hitherto been looked on as another 
world, began to have much more to do with the general 
affairs of Europe. King Edward, the last King of the 
English of the old Wes; Saxon dynasty, was, through his 
mother, a kinsman of Duke William, and it would seem 
that at one time of his life he made Duke William some 
kind of promise that, as he had no children, he should 
succeed him on the throne of England, But however 
this may be, when King Edward died in 1066, the English 
people, as there was no one in the royal family fit to 
reign, gave the crown to Earl Harold, who was then the 
greatest man in the country. Duke William however put 
forth his claim, and, though he found no one to help him 
in England, he made most people in other lands believe 
that he had the right on his side. Especially he per- 
suaded Hildebrand, who was not yet Pope, but who already 
had great influence at Rome, to take his part. So Pope 
Alexander the Second declared in his favour, and blessed 
his undertaking. This was the way in which the Popes 



IX.] THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 151 

seized every opportunity to extend their power both within 
the Empire and in other parts of the world. WiUiam was 
thus able to invade England, not only at the head of 
his own Normans, but of men from all parts, who were 
taught to look on the enterprise as a holy war. England 
was just at this time attacked by Harold Hardrada, King of 
the Nortlmten, so that our King Harold had to fight against 
two foes at once. He defeated Harold of Norway, but was 
himself defeated and slain by Duke William in the famous 
battle of Seiilac or Hastings. Duke William was crowned 
King at Christmas 1066, but the English still withstood him 
in many places, and it took him about four years to get full 
possession of the whole country. He gradually found means 
to give all the greatest estates and highest offices in England 
to Normans and other strangers, and he handed on the 
English Crown to his descendants, by whom it has been held 
ever since. 

4. Effects of the Norman Conquest of England. — The 
establishment of Duke William and- his followers in Nor- 
mandy brought about some very great changes both in Eng- 
land and in the rest of Europe. The English were not killed 
or turned out, as they had themselves done by the Welsh, 
and they kept their own laws and language ; yet for a long 
time all the ciiief men in the land were of Norman or other 
foreign descent. But it is wonderful in how short a time the 
Normans in England became good Englishmen. This was 
partly perhaps because Normans and English were, after all, 
near kinsfolk, only the English had kept their own tongue, 
while the Normans had learned to speak French. French re- 
mained for a long time the fashionable language in England, 
and though, in the end, English became once more the speech 
of all men in the land, yet in the meanwhile it becam.e greatly 
changed, and a great many French words crept in. Many new 
ideas came in with the Normans, which gradually made great 



152 THE FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

changes in both laws and manners. The power of the Kings 
became much greater than it had been before, and William 
made the whole kingdom far more truly one than it had 
been up to his time. Since his days no one has ever thought 
of dividing it. The Norman Conquest also caused far more 
intercourse than there had been before between England 
and other nations. Learning flourished more, the art ot 
building greatly advanced, and many reforms were made 
in the Church ; but it must not be forgotten that England 
from this time was brought much more under the power ot 
the Popes. 

5. Relations between England and France. — Before the 
Norman Conquest England 2Si^ France, meaning thereby the 
new Kingdom of Paris, had hardly anything to do with one 
another. But Fra?tce and Nor77iandy were often enemies. 
Ever since Paris became the capital, the Kings of the French 
had felt themselves hemmed in by the Dukes at Rouen. And 
now that the same man was Duke of the Normans and 
King of the English, the Norman Dukes became still more 
powerful in Gaul, and were still more dangerous neighbours 
to their lords the Kings of the French. The King at Paris 
was in truth shut in on every side by his own vassals, 
the great Dukes and Counts, over whom he had no real 
authority. Just at the time when the Empire was strongest 
under Henry the Third, the Kingdom of France was weakest 
under Henry the First, the third of the Parisian Kings. 
From this time there was a distinct rivalry, which we shall 
constantly come across, between the Kings of the French 
and the Kings of the English, who were also Dukes of the 
Normans. This rivalry has gone on almost ever since, 
and we shall constantly meet with it in one shape or 
another, and this rivalry had the further effect of keeping 
up the old connexion between England and Germany, both 
of them being rivals of France. I have already mentioned 



IX.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 153 

that Hejiry the First of England, the son of WilHam and the 
third of the Norman Kings, gave his daughter in marriage 
to the Emperor Henry the Fifth. King Henry of England, 
who reigned from 1 100 to 1 135, was born in England, and he 
married Edith or Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm King 
of Scots. Her mother Margaret was the granddaughter 
of King Edjmind Ironside, so that Henry's children had 
some English blood in them. In 11 54 Henry, the son of 
Henry the First's daughter the Empress Matilda by her 
second husband Geoffrey Count of Anjou, came to the Crown 
of England. The pedigree in this case should be carefully 
remembered, because with Henry the Second began the 
Angevin Kings of England, who were neither Norman nor 
English except in the female line. Henry presently married 
Eleanor the heiress of Aquitainej he thus was master of 
the more part of Northern and Western Gaul, holding of the 
King of the French far greater possessions than the King 
held himself. Here is quite a new state of things, in which 
the same man not only held both England and Normandy, 
but had by far the greatest power in all Gaul. We shall 
presently see what came of these changes. 

6. Wars with the Mahometans in Spain. — The time of 
the Franconian Emperors is also memorable as the time 
when the great struggle between the Christian and Ma- 
hometan nations began to spread itself over a much wider 
field. All this while wars had been going on with the 
Saracens in all those parts of Europe and Western Asia 
where they had settled. The Christians of Spain, as I have 
already said, had always kept their independence in the 
mountainous lands in the north, and the conquests of Charles 
the Great had been a further check to the advance of the 
Saracens. As the Western Empire began to be divided, 
the Western Caliphate grew stronger. The time of the 
greatest power of the Mahometans in Spain was in the reign 



154 THE FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

oi Abd-al-rahman the Third, from 912 to 961. The Christian 
kingdoms however still maintained their independence, and 
in 1 03 1 the Western Caliphate came to an end, and the 
Saracen dominion in Spain was cut up into several small 
states. The Christians were now able to advance, and in 
1084 Alfonso the Sixth, who had united the two kingdoms 
Leo7t and Castile, won back the old capital of Toledo, and 
was near rnaking himself master of the whole of Spain. 
The Mahometans in Spain had now to call in their fellow- 
believers in Africa to their help. Thus arose the Moorish 
dynasty of the Almoravides in Southern Spain, which put a 
check for the while to the advance of the Christians. But 
in 1 1 18, Alfonso ,of Aragon recovered Zaragoza, that is 
Ccesar- Augusta, the chief city of eastern Spain, and from 
that time the kingdom of Ai^agon also began to grow in 
importance. 

7. Foundation of the Kingdom of Sicily. — Meanwhile the 
Christians were also gaining ground on the Mahometans in 
the great islands of the Mediterranean. I have said how 
the Emperor Nikephoros won back Crete for the Eastern 
Empire, and in the beginning of the eleventh century Sar- 
dinia was won back by the people of the Tuscan common- 
wealth oi Pisa. Soon afterwards, Norman adventurers began 
to press into the South, and to make conquests at the expense 
both of the Saracens and Eastern Emperors. Under the 
fam^ous Robert Wiscard, they conquered nearly all the terri- 
tory which the Eastern Emperors still kept in Italy. They 
then crossed into Sicily in 1062, and founded a county which, 
in 1 1 30, under its third Count Roger the Second, became 
a kingdom. Thus began the Kingdom of Sicily, where at 
first French-speaking Kings reigned over Arabic-speaking 
Mahometans and Greek-speaking Christians. All three 
languages gradually died out, but for a time all nations and 
religions flourished under the iSlorman Kings. King Roger 



IX.] ADVANCE OF THE TURKS. 155 

afterwards won the Norman possessions in Italy, and the 
little that was left to the Eastern Emperors. Thus the King- 
dom of Sicily took in both the island and all the southern 
part of the Italian peninsula. 

8. The Eastern Empire. — We must now look to the affairs 
of the Eastern Empire in Asia, and the more so, because its 
affairs at this time led to the most famous of all the wars 
between Christians and Mahometans, namely tcJ the Crusades 
or Holy Wars. These were the wars which the Christians 
waged to win back the Holy Land, and especially the tomb 
of our Lord at Jerusalem, from their Mahometan possessors. 
After the death of Basil the Second, the Eastern Empire, 
which, under the Macedonian Emperors, had again become 
so powerful both in Europe and Asia, began once more to 
fall back. As a new European enemy had arisen against it 
in the Normans of Sicily, so a new and terrible enemy arose 
against it in Asia. These were the Turks of the house of 
Seljuk. We may now look on the chief dominion of Asia 
as being finally handed over from the Saracens to the 
Turks. This change of power in Asia brought about two 
memorable results. First, it was the cause of the heaviest 
blow which the Eastern Empire had undergone since the 
time of the first Caliphs. Secondly, it was the cause of the 
■ Cricsades which were waged by men from Western Europe. In 
the course of the tenth century, the Eastern Caliphate may 
be looked on as coming to an end as a political power. A 
third Caliphate arose in Egypt, and the Caliphs of Bagdad 
gradually fell under the control of their own mercenaries 
and ministers, much as the Merowingian Kings of the 
Franks had fallen under the control of the Austrasian 
Mayors. Meanwhile several Turkish dynasties arose in 
Persia., and the Mahometan conquest of India began. At 
last, in 1055, the Caliph Al Kaye7n asked help of Togrel Beg, 
the chief of the Seljuk Turks^, much as the Popes had invite^ 



156 THE FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

Pippin and Charles the Great into Italy. The Caliphs were 
now left in free possession of Bagdad, but a great Turkish 
power now arose, which soon took in all Western Asia. 
War soon arose between this new power and the Eastern 
Roman Empire. In 107 1, at the battle of Manzikert, the 
Turks, under their Sultan Alp Arslan, gained a great victory- 
over the Romans, and the Emperor Romanos was taken 
prisoner, as Valerian had long ago been by Sapor. The result 
of this was that the Eastern Emperors lost, not only all that 
had been won back under the Macedonian Emperors, but 
nearly all their possessions in Asia. The dominions of the 
Seljuk Turks now reached to the Hellespont. Palestine 
meanwhile was conquered and reconquered by the different 
Mahometan powers, and both the Eastern Christians and 
the pilgrims from Europe who went to pray at Jerusalem 
were far worse treated than they had been in the days of 
the first Saracens. Meanwhile a new dynasty arose in the 
Eastern Empire under Alexias Koj7menos, a wise prince, 
whose family kept the throne for about a hundred years, and 
produced some of the best rulers and bravest warriors among 
the Byzantine Emperors. Again, in 1092, the Seljuk power, 
like other Eastern states, was divided. One line of Sultans 
reigned in Asia Minor, having their capital at Nikaia, and, 
as they ruled over lands which had been won from the 
Empire, they called themselves Sultans of Rome. Thus 
everything favoured a common enterprise on the part of the 
Christians. The Mahometans were divided ; the Eastern 
Empire was recovering itself, and men in the West were 
stirred up by pilgrims who told of all that the Christians 
suffered in the East. Thus the nations of the West were 
moved to a great general enterprise to deliver their brethren 
and the Holy Places from the power of the infidels. 

9. The Beginning of the Crusades. — The duty of going 
to deliver the Holy Places was first preached by Peter., a 



IX.] THE CRUSADES. 157 

hermit of Amiens, though several Popes and Emperors, 
Gregory the Seventh among them, had already dreamed of 
such an undertaking. The cause was now zealously taken up 
by Pope Urban the Second, who in 1094 held a Council at 
Cleri7iont in Auvergne, at which the Holy War was decreed. 
This war was called a Crusade, because men put a cross on 
their shoulders to show that they were going to fight in a holy 
war. Neither the Emperor Henry nor any of the Kings of the 
West took any part in the Crusade, but many of the smaller 
princes and a vast number of private men set forth on the 
enterprise. Most of those who went on the First Crusade 
were French-speaking people, from which it has come that 
the Eastern nations have ever since called all the people 
of Western Europe Franks. The Crusaders passed through 
Asia Minor into Palestine, and at last, in 1099, they took 
Jerusalem. They founded several Christian principalities 
in Palestine and Syria, of which the head was the Kingdom 
of Jerusalem, of which Godfrey of Boulogne, Duke of Lower 
Lotharingia, — that is of Brabant in the modern kingdom of 
Belgium, — was the first King. The Crusaders kept Jeru- 
salem for somewhat less than a hundred years ; and, though 
the kingdom was constantly helped by neAv Crusaders from 
Europe, it had much ado to hold its ground against the 
various Mahometan powers. Meanwhile, as the power of 
the Turks had been so much weakened by the coming of 
the Crusaders, the Komnenian Emperors were able to win 
back a large part of Asia Minor, all the Euxine and ^gsean 
coasts, and the Sultans of Rome were driven back into the 
inland parts, and had their capital at Ikonion, instead of at 
Nikaia. The effects of the Crusades were very important 
in every way. Eastern and Western Christians were brought 
across one another and across the Mahometans ; and, though 
they commonly met one another as enernies, yet they carne 
to know one another better, and to learn of each oth^r. 



158 THE FRANCONIAN EMPERORS. [cH. IX. 

Both the Saracens and the Romans of the East had much 
to teach the Western nations in many branches of art and 
learning. But still more important than this was the general 
stirring up of men's minds which followed on such great 
events. From the time of the Crusades a great revival of 
thought and learning of every kind began throughout Europe, 
lo. Summary. — The time of the Franconian Emperors 
was thus a time of very important changes. The great 
struggle between the Popes and the Emperors began. The 
Ttcrkish power began. The Crusades began. The Norman 
Conquest of England took place. The Christians began J:o 
gain ground again in Spain. It was the time when the chief 
states of modern Europe began to form themselves, and 
when the literature of the Romance languages began. It was 
also a time when we find many good historical writers in 
England, Germany, and Normandy. And it was a time of 
great splendour in building, especially in building churches. 
But they were still built in the round-arched or Romans-sque 
style ; the use of the pointed arch, and what is commonly 
called the Gothic style, did not come in till near the end of 
the twelfth century. 



CHAPTER X. 

GENERAL VIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 

The Middle Ages ; union of Roman and Teutonic elements [i) — the 
Church and the Empire ; how affected by the Teutonic settlements 
(2) — ideal powers of the Emperor and the Pope : the theory only 
imperfectly carried out (2) — changes following on the transfer oj 
the Empire to the German Kings (2) — sttidy of the Roman Law 
(2) — the Western Empire becomes German and the Eastern Empire 
becomes Greek (3) — condition of the various couittries of Europe ; 
extension of the Germaiz Kingdom to the East (3) — the old Teutonic 
constitution; three order's of 7nen, nobles, freemen, and slaves (4) — 
mixture of Roman and Teutonic ideas (4) — origin of fiefs ; Rojnan 
gf-ants of land for military serzdce ; Teutonic custom of companion' 
ship to a personal Lord (5) — distinction of allodial and feudal 
tenures; change of allodial holdings into feudal {^) — effects of the 
feudal tenures ; growth of the class of serfs (6) — int7'oduction of 
representative assemblies ; grozvth of the potver of the feudal princes 
(6) — comparison of the political state of England, Germany, and 
France (7) — Kings cofnmonly chosen out of a single family (8) — 
origin of the Electors of the Empire (8) — the Crozvn of Fratice 
becomes strictly hereditary (8) — zmcertainty of succession in tlie 
Easte7'n Empire (8) — spread of Christiaitity over nearly all 
Europe {'^) — division between the Eastern and the Western Churches 
(9) — growth of the power of the Popes ; tendency of the clergy to act 
as a distinct class (9) — temporal powers of the clergy ; special great- 
ness of the Ger?nan Prelates (10) — distinction between regular and 
secular clergy (ll) — various orders of monks ; the military orders 
(11) — learning in the West chiefly in the hands of the clergy ; 
cofitrast in the East (12) — Greek becomes the language of the 
Eastern Empire ; continued use of Latin in the West {12) — early 



i6o GENERA L VIE W OF THE MIDDLE A GES. [CH. 

Tnitonrc literature; growth of the Romance languages (12) — 
revival of learning in the twelfth century (12) — position of th( 
towns in ancient Greece and Italy: their decline under the 
Teutonic invasions (13) — destruction of Roman towns in Britain 
(13) — growth of the towns in Germany; greatness of the Hanseatic 
League (13) — greatness of the cities in Italy (13) — Sujumary (14), 

1. General Survey of Europe. — We have now reached a 
point in our history at which it will be well to stop and look 
at the general state of things among the European nations. 
The points which distinguish what are called the Middle Ages, 
alike from what we are used to in modern Europe and from 
the old days of heathen Greece and Rome, are now fully 
established. The settlement of the Teutonic nations within the 
Roman Empire had gradually brought about a state of things 
in which we may see both Roman and Teutonic elements, 
but in which the two had, as we may say, so joined together 
as to make a third thing different from either. 

2. The Church knd the Empire. — The two great powers 
in Western Europe were the Church and the Empire. Both 
of these went on through the settlements of the German na- 
tions, and both in a manner drew new powers from the change 
of things. Men believed more than ever that Rome was the 
lawful and natural centre of the world. For it was held that 
there were of divine right two Vicars of GodM^on earth, the 
Ro7nan E7nperor his Vicar in temporal things, and the Roman 
Bishop his Vicar in spiritual things. This behef did not 
interfere with the existence either of separate commonwealths 
and principalities or of national Churches. But it was held 
that the Roman Emperor, who was called Loj^d of the 
World, was of right the head of all temporal states, and 
that the Roman Bishop, the Pope, was of right the head of 
all Churches. Now this theory was never carried out, if only 
because so large a part of Christendom, all the Churches 
and nations of the East, refused to acknowledge either the 



X.] THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE i6i 

Emperor or the Bishop of the Old Rome. But it was much 
more nearly carried out in the case of the Roman Bishop 
than it was in the case of the Roman Emperor. For the 
Popes did really make themselves spiritual heads of the 
whole West, while the temporal headship of the Emperors 
was never acknowledged by a large part even of the West. 
But the continued belief which men still had in the Roman 
Empire as a living thing is not only most remarkable in 
itself, but it had a most important effect on the history of 
the world. Still it is plain that the Roman Empire could 
not really be the same thing as it had been before the 
Teutonic nations came into the Roman dominions. Even 
during the short time that the whole Empire of Charles the 
Great stayed together, it made a great difference that the 
Emperor was a German King, living for the most part in 
Germany, and not at Rome or anywhere in Italy. And 
afterwards the utter cutting off of France and Spain from 
the Empire did much to take away from its character as an 
universal monarchy, and to make the Emperors more like 
common Kings over a particular nation. They were still 
Kings of Italy and Burgundy as well as of Germany, but 
most things were now tending to make the Empire more and 
more German and less and less Roman. On the other hand, 
as this was the time of a great new birth of learning, men 
had begun, among other things, to study the Civil Law, the 
old Law of Rome, as it was put together by the Emperor 
Justinian. This study naturally led men to a respect for 
the Imperial power, and thus helped to give the claims of 
the Emperors a new source of strength. We shall see pre- 
sently the effects of these different tendencies when we 
come to the history of the Emperors during the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries. 

3. Tha Nations of Eurojpe. — Nearly all the nations of 
Modern Europe had now come into being. We may even 

M 



i62 GENERAL VIE W OF THE MIDDLE A GES. [CH. 

say that the two Empires themselves had begun to answer to 
two of those nations. For the Eastern Empire had, through 
the conquests of the Turks, come to answer pretty nearly to 
those parts of Europe and of the coasts of Asia where Greek 
was the prevailing language. That is to say, the Roman 
Empire of the East might be said, speaking roughly, to have 
become a Greek state. And, speaking still more roughly, it 
might even be said that the Roman Empire of the West had 
become a German State, For Germany was now the heart 
and centre of the Empire, though the possession of the King- 
doms of Italy and Burgundy of course gave the Emperors 
many Romance-speaking subjects. Southern Italy, it will be 
remembered, now formed part of the Kingdom of Sicily. To 
the West of Germany and Burgundy, beyond the Rhone, the 
Saone, and the Maes, lay the Kingdom of France, the lands 
held by the King of the French and his vassals. In the 
Spanish peninsula the Christian states of Castile and Leon, 
Navarre, Aragon, and Portugal, were all growing up, and 
were gradually driving the Mahometans into the southern 
part called Andalusia. These countries had now so little to 
do with the Empire that more than one of the Kings of 
Castile took the title of Ei7ipe7'or, as being the chief princes in 
their own peninsula, just as the West-Saxon Kings had done 
the like, as being the chief princes in their own island. It 
was only towards the East, where Germany bordered on the 
Slavonic nations, that the Empire had much chance of 
extending itself. The Wends, the Slavonic people along the 
south coast of the Baltic, in Mecklenburg and Pomerania and 
the other lands beyond the Elbe, gradually became Christians 
find were joined on to Germany, and the Low-Dutch language 
gradually displaced the Slavonic. vS'^?/?^;;?/^? became a dependent 
state, but it kept its own Dukes who afterwards became Kings. 
So in the other chief Slavonic country, that of Poland, the 
Dukes and Kings had sometimes to submit to the Emperors, 



,x.] THE NATIONS OF EUROPE. 163 

but in the end Poland gradually became quite independent, 
while Bohemia became more and more closely joined on to 
the Empire. We may say nearly the same of the Kingdom 
of the Magyars in Hungary. To the East of Poland and 
Hungary, Lithuania^ where the people were still heathens, 
and Rjissia, where they belonged to the Eastern Church, 
had very little to do with Western Europe. In Northern 
Europe, Denmark^ Sweden^ and Norway were distinct king- 
doms. Sweden and Norway had, from their position, veiy 
little to do with the rest of Europe, except so far as the 
Orkneys and the other islands off Scotland were still closely 
connected with Norway. But Denmark was a very impor- 
tant power, and its Kings made large conquests in various 
parts of the coasts of the Baltic. England^ as we have said, 
had become thoroughly welded into one kingdom under the 
Norman Kings. Scotland was a distinct kingdom, but its 
Kings were held to be the nien of the English Kings. And, 
during the tim.e with which we are now concerned, came the 
beginnings of the English Conquest of Ireland. We thus 
see that most of the European states which still exist had 
already come into being-. From this point therefore we may 
for the most part leave the internal affairs of each country to 
be dealt with in its own special History. But we must still 
go on with our sketch of those events which affected the his- 
tory of the nations in general, and this will be a good point 
to say something about the state of government, religion, and 
other matters during what are called the Middle Ages. 

4. Changes in the Old Teutonic Constitution. — We 
saw at the very beginning of this book that all the Aryan 
nations set out, as far as we can see, with very much the 
same kind of government. There was a King or chief as 
the leader, there was a smaller Council of nobles or old men, 
and there was a general Assembly of the whole people. This 
was the form of government of the Teutonic nations at the 

M 2 



l64 GENERA L VIE W OF THE MIDDLE A GES. [CH. 

time when they began to settle within the Roman Empire. 
There were commonly three classes of men in the state, the 
nobles^ the common freeinan^ and the slaves. And men be- 
came slaves in two ways, either by being made prisoners of 
war or by being condemned to slavery for some crime. And it 
was also usual, especially in war-time, for men to attach them- 
selves to the service of some particular leader, to become his 
companions or his ?nen^ who were bound to be faithful to him 
and who looked to share such rewards as he had to give 
them. This we may call the old Teutonic Constitution, being 
at first common to all the Teutonic nations. But our own fore- 
fathers, when they settled in Britain, swept away all Roman 
institutions more utljprly than was done in any part of the 
mainland. Scandinavia too never came under the Roman 
power at all. It was therefore in Britain and Scandinavia that 
this old constitution lasted longest on a great scale. In those 
parts of the mainland which had always belonged to the Em- 
pire things went on somewhat differently. As we have already 
said, Roman and Teutonic institutions influenced one another. 
As the Roman Empire became something quite different when 
it began to be held by German Kings, so the Teutonic Con- 
stitution was greatly changed by the Roman laws and institu- 
tions which were already established. The cities, for instance, 
kept wp something of their Roman constitutions ; and as men 
learned something of the Roman Law, they began to attribute 
to the Teutonic Kings something of the great powers of the 
Roman Emperors. And of course they did this all the more 
after the Frankish Kings had actually become Roman Em- 
perors. And one institution arose out of the mixture of 
Roman and Teutonic ideas which has had a most important 
influence on the world ever since. 

5. Origin of Fiefs. — It had been very common under the 
Roman government to grant lands on condition of military 
service. But such lands were held of the Roman Common- 



X.] FEUDAL TENURES. 165 

wealth or of the Emperor as its head, and their holding did 
not create any particular personal relation between one man 
and another. But when this Roman custom was combined 
with the Teutonic custom of men following a chief as their 
personal lord, a peculiar relation arose out of the union of 
the two. The lord granted lands to his man or vassal on 
condition of his being faithful to him and doing him service 
in war. The land so granted was called a feudum^ Jief, or 
fees and land held in this way was said to be held by 3.fettdal 
tenure. Land which was a man's very own, which was not 
held of any lord but was subject only to the laws of the 
state, was called allodial. But it often happened that men 
whose estates were small found it convenient to turn their 
allodial holdings into fettdal, and to agree to hold their land 
of some powerful lord, in order to get his protection. And 
the same thing was sometimes done on a great scale, as 
when a prince who was conquered, or who feared that he 
might be conquered, agreed to hold his dominions m Jiefoi 
the Emperor rather than lose them altogether. 

6. Effects of the Feudal Tenures. — The general intro- 
duction of these feudal or military tenures caused some im- 
portant changes both in political and in social matters. The 
change was made gradually, and it was slower in England 
than in most parts of the Continent ; but its general' effect 
was to raise those men who held their lands by these new 
tenures above all others, and to thrust the poorer freemen 
lower down. In many countries they gradually sank into the 
state of serfs or villains; that is, men who are not actually 
slaves to be bought and sold man by man, but who are 
bound to the land and pass with it. Meanwhile the class 
of actual slaves was dying out, and the serf class was 
increased both by the freemen who fell down to it, and by 
the slaves who were raised into it. Again the smaller free- 
men lost power in another way. The old Teutonic con- 



1 66 GENERAL VIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [ch. 

stitution, by which each freeman had a right to appear in 
the national Assembly, could no longer be fully carried out 
when the Franks or any other people had got possession 
of a large country. All men could not come in their own 
persons, and it was not for a long time, not till the twelfth 
or thirteenth century, that anyone thought of choosing a 
smaller number of men to speak and act on behalf of all, as 
is now done in the English Parliament, and in most of 
the countries of Europe and America. From all these causes 
working together two chief results happened. First, in most 
parts of Europe the old national Assemblies either quite died 
out, or were attended only by the chief men who could come 
in their own persons. Secondly, each province or district 
had a tendency to set up for itself. The Count or Duke, 
who was at first merely the governor of a province, often 
grew into an hereditary prince, acknowledging the Emperor 
or other King as the lo?'d of whom he held his dominions 
in Jief, but acting almost as an independent sovereign in the 
internal government of those dominions. 

7. Comparison of Different Countries. — These tendencies 
were more or less at work in every part of Western Europe, 
but they were carried out more fully and more quickly in 
some countries than in others. Scandinavia and England 
up to the time of the Norman Conquest were less affected 
by them than other countries. In England the national 
Assemblies never died out, but, as the Kings of the West- 
Saxons grew into Ki^igs of the English, the Assembly of 
Wessex became the national Assembly of all England. The 
coming in of the Normans greatly strengthened the power 
of the Crown, and thereby made the nation more thoroughly 
one. But, on the other hand, it greatly strengthened the 
feudal ideas, till it was thought that all land must be held of 
a lord, of the King of course in the first instance, as the 
supreme lord. In Germany also, the national Assemblies 



X.] ELECTION OF KINGS. 167 

never died out ; but the Bishops, Dukes, Counts, and other 
princes gradually became sovereigns within their own do- 
minions, and the Diet or Assembly of the Empire gradually 
became little more than a meeting of princes. In Italy things 
took a course so different from other countries that it will be 
well to speak of it by itself. France for a while fell asunder 
more completely than any other kingdom. The national 
Assembhes ceased altogether, and the Kings became mere 
nominal lords over the great princes who held fiefs of them. 
But this in the end led to a greater strengthening of the royal 
power in France than in any other kingdom. For the Kings 
of the French got step by step into their own hands nearly 
all the dominions of their vassals, as well as those of many of 
their neighbours who were not their vassals. Thus, for the 
very reason that the French Kings had once had much less 
power than either the Emperors or the English Kings, they 
came in the end to have much more power than either of them. 
8. Ways of appointing Kings. — As for the way in which 
Kings were appointed, by the old Teutonic Constitution the 
Kings were chosen by the people, but for the most part out 
of one particular family. In England this way of choosing 
Kings lasted till the Norman Conquest, and died out only 
very gradually afterwards. The Prankish or German Kings, 
who by virtue of their election in Germany had a right to 
become Roman Emperors, Avere always elected. But in the 
tAvelfth century the right of election began gradually to be 
confined to a few of the chief princes of Germany, who were 
fixed at seven, and who bore the special title of Electors. But 
the Emperors, whenever they could, got their sons to be chosen 
Kings in their lifetime, as Henry the Third and Fourth both 
did. In this case, when the young King's father died, he 
went on reigning without any interregnum, and in due time 
he was crowned Emperor. In France the Crown became 
more strictly hereditary than anywhere else, because, for more 



l68 GENERAL VIE W OF THE MIDDLE A GES. [CH. 

than three hundred years after the election of Hugh Capet, 
every King of the French left a son ready to succeed him, 
and who had sometimes been crowned in his father's lifetime. 
Thus in France the male line went on without any break, 
while, both in Germany and in England, the Crown passed 
several times from one family to another, though the several 
dynasties were commonly of some kin to one another through 
female descent. All that we have now been saying has to do 
only with Western Europe. In the East the system of fiefs 
was never introduced till the Latins began to make conquests 
at the expense of the Eastern Emperors. And in the East 
too the Empire went on as it had done from the time of the 
first Caesars, often staying in one family for several genera- 
tions, but being often seized on by any general or leading 
man who was strong enough. This was a state of things 
which had quite passed away in the West. In the Eastern 
Empire too the power of the Emperors remained quite 
despotic ; still their government never became quite like the 
despotisms of the East, as it was always tempered by some 
remembrance of the old laws and traditions of Rome. 

9. State of Religion. — By this time by far the greater 
part of Europe was Christian. Poland and Hungary were 
converted about the end of the tenth century, and the Scan- 
dinavian countries, as we have already seen, about the same 
time. Only the Prussians and Lithuanians^ and the Fins 
and Laps in the extreme North, remained heathen. In Spain 
the Saracens and Moors were of course Mahometans, and 
there were still Mahometans in Sicily under the Norman, 
Kings. But, while nearly all Europe was thus Christian, the 
division between the two great branches of the Church had 
become wider than ever. After the eleventh century there 
seemed no hope of a reconciliation between the Churches of 
Old and New Rome, In the West the power of the Popes 
was steadily growing, and it was at its height from the 



X.] STATE OF RELIGION. 169 

eleventh century to the thirteenth, during which time several 
Popes followed the example of Gregory the Seventh, in taking 
upon themselves to depose the Emperors and other Kings, 
and to give away their dominions. And, while the power of 
the Popes was thus growing at the expense of civil rulers, it 
was growing no less fast at the expense of national Churches 
in each particular country. And, as the rule by which the 
clergy were forbidden to marry was spreading everywhere, 
they were becoming a class more and more separate from 
other men, and more and more obedient to the Popes. In 
all this there was much that we cannot help blaming, and the 
Popes and clergy often thought too much of the interests ot 
their own order, and not of the welfare of the Church in 
general ; still we must remember that the Popes and other 
clergy kept up religion and learning, and a general sense ot 
right and wrong, in very rough and wild times. There was 
much to blame in their own conduct, but they were a great 
check on the evil passions of men ; and, whatever we say ot 
the Popes in particular, the general influence of the clergy 
was a powerful influence for good. 

10. Position of the Clergy, — As the Popes were constantly 
taking to themselves power in temporal matters, so we find 
in these times the clergy in general taking a part in temporal 
aft'airs which we should now think very strange. But this 
was by no means wholly the fault of the clergy ; as things 
were then, it could hardly be otherwise. The clergy had 
nearly all the knowledge of the time in their hands, so that it 
could not fail that they were largely employed in all matters, 
including many which did not exactly belong to their own 
duties. They acted as ministers of Kings and as lawyers, 
and many of them did not scruple to wear weapons and 
fight, though this was always held to be a wrong thing and 
against the laws of the Church. In all parts of Western 
Christendom the bishopricks and monasteries and other 



1 70 GENERAL VIE W OF THE MIDDLE A GES. [CH. 

ecclesiastical bodies were richly endowed, and held great 
lands and lordships. In Germany especially most of the 
Bishops and Abbots were princes of the Empire, and the three 
Archbishops of Mainz, Kbln, and Trier (called in Frencli 
Mayence, Cologjte, and Treves) were among the Electors of 
the Emperor. In other countries they did not rise to such 
power as this, but they were always high in temporal power 
and formed important members of the Parliament or othei 
national Assembly. 

II. The Monastic Orders, — The distinction between the 
regular and the secular clergy was now fully established. The 
regular clergy were those who went out of the world and 
lived together as monks in monasteries ; the seculars were 
those who lived in the world as parish priests or canons of 
cathedral and collegiate churches. There were many learned 
men in both classes ; but we have on the whole more 
histories and other books written by the regulars than by 
the seculars. The oldest monks in the West were the Bene- 
dictines, who followed the rule of Saint Benedict, the great 
founder of the monastic life in Italy in the sixth century. But, 
as the Benedictines grew rich and their discipline became less 
strict, other orders of monks arose, who professed to bring back 
an older and stricter discipline. Such were the Cistercians, 
an order of which many houses were founded in the twelfth 
century ; and in the thirteenth arose the different orders of 
Friars, as the Franciscans and Dominicajis, called after their 
founders Saint Francis and Saint Domitiic, who professed 
more complete poverty than the older orders, and gave them- 
selves much to preaching. All these different revivals, one 
after the other, did good at the time, both among the monks 
and among other men ; but each new order commonly came 
in the end to be rich and corrupt, like those which it had 
undertaken to reform, and so a new reformation was needed. 
But the strangest thing of all was that during the Crusade, 



^.] THE MONASTIC ORDERS. 171 

there arose orders of monks who were also soldiers— men 
who took the vows of monks, but whose further business it 
was to fight against the enemies of Christianity. Two of 
these 7nilitary orders, the Templars and the Hospitallers 
or Kfiights of Saint John, were the chief defence of the 
Christian kingdom of Jerusalem. Another order of this 
kind, called the Teutonic Knights, arose in Palestine towards 
the end of the twelfth century, and in the course of the 
thirteenth they undertook to convert or conquer the heathens 
on the coast of the Baltic, in Prussia and Livonia, where 
the order held principalities. Thus strangely were religious 
zeal and the love of fighting mixed up in these times. 

12. Language and Learning.— In all this it must be 
remembered that we are speaking wholly of Western Christ- 
endom, and more especially when we speak of knowledge 
being in the hands of the clergy. In the Eastern Empire 
both the regular and secular clergy play a great part in his- 
tory, but they neither had all learning to themselves, nor did 
they fill temporal offices in the same way in which they did 
in the West. In the East, where the Empire had gone on 
uninterruptedly without any lasting barbarian conquests, 
learning had never died out among the laity. The Latin 
language ^\ now quite forgotten in the East. Greek was 
the one tongue which men both wrote and spoke, though 
of course they wrote much better Greek than they spoke. 
Many of the histories which were written at Constan- 
tinople at this time were written by laymen, often by 
Emperors and other men of high rank. But in the West 
there was nowhere any one language common to all classes 
of men. The use of Latin was everywhere kept up for 
all purposes of religion and learning. The Church service 
was still said in Latin, though Latin was now nowhere the 
common language of the people. For in Ger77iany, England, 
and Scandinavia men spoke their own Teutonic languages, 



172 GENERAL VIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [ch. 



and in Italy ^ Aquitaine, Spain, and France, men spoke the 
Romance tongues, which we must now look on as languages 
distinct from the Latin. It thus came about that very few 
books were written by laymen, and that very few books were 
anywhere written in the speech of the people. Still, more 
books were written in the speech of the people in the 
Teutonic than in the Romance countries, because no one 
could help knowing that High-Dntck, English, or Danish 
was quite a different language from Latin ; while men for a 
long time looked on the vulgar tongue, as it was called, in 
the Romance countries, simply as bad Latin, which no one 
would think of writing. Thus we have many Old-English, 
and some High-Dutch, writings older than anything in any of 
the Romance tongues. In England they have what no other 
nation has, a History of its own people from the beginning 
written in their own language. In Scandinavia too- men 
wrote their own legends and histories in their own tongue. 
We begin to get French verse in the twelfth century, but it 
is not till the thirteenth century that we get any prose. It 
is somewhat later that we come to the first great work of 
Italian literature in the famous poem of Dante Alighieri. 
The first chief writers in both these languages were, as might 
be supposed, laymen. The twelfth century was a great new 
birth of learning and science everywhere, partly because men 
then began to have more dealings with the Greeks and 
Saracens. Still, even after this time, laymen in Northern 
Europe were, as a rule, not taught to read and write, though 
reading and writing gradually became more common, and it 
must always be remembered that, when a man could not 
write, it does not at all follow that he could not read. 

13. Growth of the Towns. — Another thing must here be 
mentioned, which was of special importance at the time 
which we have just come to. This was the growing up of 
the towns into greater, in some parts into the very first, im- 



X.] GROWTH OF THE TOWNS. 173 



portance. In the old state of things, Greek and Roman, the 
towns had, so to speak, been everything. Every freeman 
was a citizen of some town or other, and the Roman/ 
dominion was throughout a dominion of one city bearing 
rule over other cities. The Teutonic settlements everywhere 
drove the towns back ; none of the Teutonic nations were 
used to a town life. They looked upon the walls 'of a town as 
a prison. In Britain, our own forefathers, who knew nothing 
at all of Roman civilization, seem at first to have utterly 
destroyed the Roman towns, and it was not till some time 
after the first conquest that TvQyf Etiglish towns began to arise, 
very often on the old Roman sites. In the other provinces, 
the Goths, Franks, and other Teutonic settlers did not destroy 
the Roman towns, but they lost much of their importance 
and local freedom. But, as civilization began to grow again, 
new towns began to spring up, and the old towns to win back 
something of their old greatness. In Germany the Saxon 
Emperors were great founders of towns ; and, both there and 
in other parts of the Empire, the old and the new towns alike 
gradually won for themselves great privileges, which made 
them almost independent within their own walls. And, as the 
Imperial power declined and the Dukes and Counts grew 
into sovereign princes, so in the same way the free Imperial 
cities grew into sovereign commonwealths, acknowledging 
only the outward supremacy of the Emperor. And in many 
cases, like the towns of Old Greece and Italy, they joined to- 
gether in Leagues for mutual defence. Thus in Northern Ger- 
many, the Hanseatic League, the league of the great trading 
towns, became a great power in all the Northern seas, and 
often gave law to the Kings of Denmark and Sweden. But 
the part of the Empire where the towns rose to the highest 
pitch of greatness was Ltaly, especially the northern part. 
There, from the eleventh century onwards, the towns, as we 
may say, became everything, just as they had been in old 



174 GENERAL VIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGES. [CH. X. 

Greece. Here nearly the whole country was parted out among 
the dominions of the different cities, and the whole land bfccame 
again an assemblage of commonwealths, independent of any 
power but that of the Emperor. But though the freedom of 
the Italian towns became greater than that of the towns in 
Germany, it was not so lasting. In Germany a great majiy 
of the towns always kept their freedom ; and three of them, 
the Hanse Towns of Lilbeck, Bremen, and Hamburg, are 
separate commonwealths even now. But in Italy most of 
the cities fell, just as those of old Greece did long before, into 
the hands either of native lords or Tyrants or into those of 
foreign princes. Thus it was that Italy became divided, 
or rather grouped together, . into the various principalities 
which have lately been joined together again into the restored 
Kmgdom of Italy. But a few commonwealths contrived to 
go on till the end of the last century, and one very small one, 
that of Sajt Marino, remains still. 

14. Summary. — These are some of the chief characteristics 
which we may look on as distinguishing the times known as 
the Middle Ages from times earlier and later. It is not easy 
to say when the Middle Ages begin and end, as the name is 
nothing more than a convenient way of speaking. But the 
tendencies of which we have been speaking were about their 
height in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in the time of 
the Swabian Emperors. We have now, so to speak, got 
quite clear of the old Roman times, while we have not yet 
got into the times which are more like those in which we 
now live. In the course of the thirteenth century we shall 
come across great changes. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE SWABIAN EMPERORS. 

The Hokenstaiifen Kings and Emperors ; origin of the names Guelf 
and Ghibelin (l) — reign and crusade of Conrad {i)-^reign of 
Frederick Barbarossa ; his dealings with the Italian cities, with 
the Popes, with Kings of Sicily, with the Eastern Ejnpire (2) — • 
reign of Henry the Sixth ; his conquest of Sicily (3) — double election 
of Philip and Otto ; reign of Frederick the Second ; his dealings 
with Sicily, Germany, Italy, and the Popes (4) — reign of Conrad 
the Fourth ; end of the Swabian dynasty ; decline of the Imperial 
power (4) — relations between England and Fj'ance ; domi^tions of 
the Angevin Kings ; reign of Henry the Second (5) — rivahy of 
Philip Augusttis and Richard Cceur-de-Lion (5) — reign of John 
in England ; his forfeiture of Normandy (5) — victory of Philip at 
B Olivines ; Lewis of France in England (5) — reign of Lewis the 
Eighth (6) — reign of Saint Lewis ; his dealings with Henry the 
Third ; annexation of Toidouse (6) — effects of the reign of Saint 
Lewis ; advance of the French Kingdom (6) — grozvth of the Eng- 
lish Constitution; union of Normans and English against 
foreigners {7) — reforms of Simon of Montfort ; nature of national 
asse??zblies in England and elsewhere (7) — the English conquest of 
Ireland (8)— state of the Kingdom of Jerusaleiii ; the Second 
Crusade; taking of Jertisalem by Saladin (9) — Crusade of the 
Emperor Frederick, and the Kings Philip and Richard (10) — 
Frederick the Second wifts back Jerusalem ; its final capture by the 
Chorasmians (10) — Crusades of Saint Lewis and of Edward the 
First; final loss of the Holy Land (10) — revival of the Eastern 
Empire under the Komnenian dynasty; its decline {11) — Fourth 
Crusade ; taking of Constantinople by the Franks and Venetians 
(11) — the Latin Empire of Cotistantinople ; Eastern dominion of 



176 THE SWABIAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

Venice {12)— fo?-mation of various principalities in the East , 
Emperors of Nikaia and Trebizond {12) ■^— Constantinople re- 
covered by the Greeks ; dynasty of the Palaiologoi (12) — the 
Albigenses ; Crusades tvaged against them ; suppression of their 
sect and of their national independence (13) — reign of Manfred in 
Sicily ; Crusades preached against him (14) — conquest of Sicily by 
Charles of Anjou ; execution of Conradin ; revolt of the island gf 
Sicily (14) — state of North-eastern Europe ; advance of Denmark 
east of the Baltic (15) — establish7?zent of the Teutonic Knights in 
Prussia and Livonia (15) — new Mahometan dynasties in Spain ; 
victories of the Caliph yacob (16) — advance of the Christian King- 
doms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal ; the Moors confined to 
Granada (16) — rise of the Moguls; reigns of Jenghiz and his 
descendants (17) — invasion of Central Europe by Batou Khan ; 
subjection of Russia (17) — overthrow of the Caliphate and of the 
Seljuk Tttrks (17) — Summary (18). 

I. Origin oftheGuelfs and Ghibelins. — On the death of 
Henry the Fifth in 1125, Lothar, Duke of Saxony, was 
elected King, and in 1133 he was crowned Emperor. He 
submitted more readily to the Popes than most Emperors did, 
and Pope Innocent the Second even gave out that he became 
his 7nan at his coronation. But on Lothar's death the Imperial 
Crown passed to one of the greatest families which ever held 
it, that of the Hohenstaufen or Dukes of Swabia. The first 
King of that house was Conrad the Third, who reigned 
as King from 1 138 to 1152, but who was never crowned 
Emperor, He was the son of a daughter of the Emperor 
Henry the Fotirth, so that the Swabian dynasty did in a' 
manner continue that of Franconia. It might also be said 
to continue them in their policy ; for the Emperors of this 
family had fully as much to do in disputing with the Popes 
as the Franconian Emperors had done. This however did 
not begin in the time of King Conrad, who had hardly any- 
thing to do with Italian affairs. But it should be noticed 
that the two names of Guelf and Ghibelin, which presently 



XI.] GUELFS AND GHIBELINS. 177 



became so famous in Italy, began during his reign in Ger- 
many. Fbr Conrad had several wars with the Saxons and 
others who disliked his election, and in one of the sieges the 
war-cry of the rebels was W£if\ j3Sx.qx their leader, Welf^ 
brother of Duke Hemy of Saxony^ while the King's men 
shouted Waiblingen, the name of a village where their leader, 
Duke Frederick of Swabia, the King's brother, had been 
brought up. These names, written in an Italian fashion, 
became Guelfs and Ghibelins : the Guelfs meaning those 
who supported the Popes, and the Ghibelins those who 
supported the Emperors. King Conrad went on the second 
Crusade to the Holy Land, in which he did not gain much 
success ; and it is a thing to be noted that he made a league 
with Manuel, the Emperor of the East, against Roger King of 
Sicily, who was making himself dangerous to both Empires. 
2. Reign of Frederick Barbarossa. — But the reign of 
Conrad was of little importance compared with that of his 
nephew and successor Frederick^ who, from his red beard, 
is commonly known as Frederick Barbarossa. He was 
chosen King in 1152 ; he was crowned Emperor in 1155, and 
reigned till 11 90. The greater part of his reign was taken 
up with the affairs and wars of Italy. The Italian cities, 
as has been already said, had grown up into nearly inde- 
pendent commonwealths. They often had wars with one 
another, and, just as in old Greece, the smaller cities often 
complained of the oppression of the greater. Thus the 
great city of Milan sought to bring Coma, Lodi, and others 
of the smaller cities under its power, and the smaller cities 
in their turn prayed the Emperor to come to their help. 
Some of the cities, as Pavia, which had been the capital 
in the Lombard times, and the great seafaring common- 
wealth of Pisa, were always strong on the side of the Empe- 
rors. But, gradually, most of the cities of Northern Italy 
found that it was their interest to join together to defend 

N 



178 THE SWAB IAN EMPERORS. [cwap. 

their independence against the Imperial power. Thus was 
formed the Lombard League, with which Frederick had long 
wars, which will be best spoken of in the special History 
of Italy. But, besides the cities, the Western Emperors had 
other enemies to strive against in Italy. Popes and Em- 
perors never could agree ; disputes arose between Frederick 
and Pope Hadrian the Fourth, who had crowned him. When 
Hadrian died in 1 1 59, a fiercer dispute broke out ; for the 
Popedom was claimed by two candidates, Victor and Alex- 
ander. The Emperor took the side of Victor ; therefore the 
cities which were against him naturally took the other side, 
and Frederick had to strive against all who followed Pope 
Alexander. The Kings of Sicily too, William the Good 
and William the Bad, were his enemies ; and the Emperor 
Mantiel Komnenos, who dreamed of winning back Italy for 
the Eastern Empire, also gave help to the revolted cities. The 
end was that the Emperor had to make peace with both the 
Pope and the cities, and in 11 83 the rights of the cities were 
acknowledged in a treaty or law of the Empire, passed at 
Constanz or Constayice in Swabia. In the last years of his 
reign, Frederick went on the third Crusade, and- died on 
the way. 

3. Union of Sicily with the Empire. — Frederick was suc- 
ceeded by his son Henry the Sixth, who had already been 
chosen King, and who in the next year, 1191, was crowned 
Emperor. The chief event of his reign was the conquest of 
the Kingdom of Sicily, which he claimed in right of his wife 
Constance, the daughter of the first King William. He 
died in 1197, leaving his son Frederick a young child, who 
had already been chosen King in Germany, and who suc- 
ceeded as hereditary King in Sicily. The Norman Kingdom 
of Sicily thus came to an end, except so far as it was con- 
tinued through Frederick, who was descended from the 
Norman Kings through his mother. 



XI.] THE FREDERICKS. 179 

4. Reign of Frederick the Second. — On the death of the 
Emperor Henry, the election of young Frederick seems to have 
been quite forgotten, and the crown was disputed between 
his uncle Philip of Swabia and Otto of Saxony. He was 
son of Henry the Lion, who had been Duke of Saxony and 
Bavaria, but who had lost the more part of his dominions 
in the time of Frederick Barbarossa. Otto's mother was 
Matilda, daughter of Henry the Second of England, a con- 
nexion of which we shall presently see what came. Both 
Kings were crowned, and, after the death of Philip, Otto was 
crowned Emperor in 1209. But presently young Frederick' 
was again chosen, and in 1220 he was crowned Emperor, and 
reigned thirty years till his death in 1250. This Frederick the 
Second, who joined together so many crowns, was called the 
Wonder of the World. And he well deserved the name, for 
perhaps no King that ever reigned had greater natural gifts, 
and in thought and learning he was far above the age in 
which he lived. In his own kingdom of Sicily he could do 
pretty much as he pleased, and it flourished wonderfully in 
his time. But in Gennajiy and Italy he had constantly to 
struggle against enemies of all kinds. In Germany he had to 
win the support of the Princes by granting them privileges 
which did much to undermine the royal power, and on the 
other hand he showed no favour to the rising power of the 
cities. In Italy he had endless strivings with one Pope 
after another, with Innocent the Third, Honorius the Third, 
G?'ego}y the Ninth, and Innocent the Fourth j as well as 
with the Guelfic cities, which withstood him much as they 
had withstood his grandfather. He was more than once 
excommunicated by the Popes, and in 1245 Pope Innocent 
the Fourth held a Council at Lyons, in which he professed to 
depose the Emperor. More than one King was chosen in 
opposition to him in Germany, just as had been done in the 
time of Henry the Fourth, and there were civil wars all his 

N 2 



i8o THE SWABIAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

time, both in Germany and in Italy, while a great part of the 
Kingdom of Burgundy was beginning to slip away from the 
Empire altogether. On Frederick's death, his son Conrad^ 
who had been chosen King in Germany in 1237, and who of 
course succeeded his father in the hereditary Kingdom ot 
Sicily, was reckoned as King by the Ghibelins in Germany 
and Italy. But he died in 1254, and he was never crowned 
Emperor. With him ended the line of Swabia as Emperors 
and as Kings of Germany and Italy. Moreover, from the 
death of Frederick the Second, we may look on the power of 
the Empire, as the great leading state of Europe and the 
centre of all European histoiy, as coming to an end. 

5. England and France. — While the Swabian Emperors 
reigned in Germany and Italy, the Angevin Kings reigned in 
England. They began with Henry the Second, the grand- 
son of Henry the First through his daughter the Ejnpress 
Matilda. Now came the time when England was part ot 
the dominions of a prince whose greatest power lay on 
the Continent. The dorninions which Henry held through 
his father, his mother, and his wife, took up nearly the 
whole of Western Gaul, and he held the mouths of the 
great rivers Seine, Loire, and Garonne. Thus it came that 
in England both the native English and the Norman settlers 
were brought under the rule of a King who was not really 
either Norman or English. Thus too it came that in France 
the King was more than ever shut up in his own dominions, 
when nearly the whole coast was held by a prince who was 
Duke of Normandy and Aquitai7ie and King of England all 
at once. Thus there began in England a more distinct rule ot 
foreigners over all the natives of the land of whatever race, 
and in France the rivalry between the King and his great 
vassal is more marked than ever. In France King Lewis the 
Sixth, -who reigned from 1108 to 11 37, had done something to 
strengthen the royal authority, and he had also favoured the 



XL] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 



growth of the towns. His son Lewis the Seventh was often 
at variance with King Henry of England, but no very great 
changes happened while they lived. It was quite different in 
the time of their sons. Lewis died in 1 1 80, and was succeeded 
by his son Philips called PJiilip Augustus; and Henry died 
in 1 1 89, and was succeeded by his son Richard^ called CcBiir 
de Lion or the Lion-Heart. These two Kings joined in a 
Crusade, of which we shall say more presently ; but enmity 
went on during the whole of their reigns, and things came to 
a head in the time of King Joh?i of England, who succeeded 
on the death of his brother Richard in 1 199. He was lawfully 
chosen King according to English law, and it does not seem 
that any party in England thought of raising anyone else to 
the crown. But a party in Richard's foreign dominions 
wished to have for their Duke young Arthur, the son of John's 
elder brother Geoffrey, whose mother was Constance, the 
heiress of Britanny. John got Arthur into his power, and 
he was commonly believed to have murdered him. This ol 
course raised great indignation everywhere, and Philip took 
advantage of it to cause a sentence to be passed by the 
pee/s of his kingdom, by which John was declared to have 
forfeited all the fiefs which he held of the Crown of France. 
By way of carrying out this sentence, Philip conquered, with 
very little trouble, all continental Nor-inandy and the other 
possessions of John in Northern Gaul. But the Duchy of 
Aquitaine and the Noi^inan Islands were still kept by the 
Kings of England. From this time England became 
the most important part of the King of England's domi- 
nions, and all the natives of England, whether of Old- 
Enghsh or of Norman descent, began to draw together as 
countrymen to withstand the strangers whom the Angevin 
Kings were constantly bringing into the land. Mean- 
while John contrived to quarrel both with Pope Innocent 
and with his own subjects : an J in 12 14 Philip won the 



l82 THE SWABIAN EMPERORS. [CHAP. 



battle of Bouvines in Flanders over the English forces, to- 
gether with those of John's nephew the Emperor Otto. In 
this battle the French got the better of three Teutonic 
nations, Germans, English, and Flemings all together. In 
1 216, the Barons of England who had revolted against John 
offered the crown to Lewis the eldest son of Philip of France. 
He came over into England ; but, as John died before long, 
the supporters of Lewis gradually left him, and Henry the 
Third, the young son of John, was acknowledged King, 
Two things strike us in this part of the story. On the one 
hand, it seems strange that the Normans in Normandy, who 
had had such long wars with the French, should have 
allowed themselves to be conquered by Philip almost with- 
out making any resistance. On the other hand, it seems 
strange that the Barons of England, whether we call them 
Normans or Englishmen, should have offered the crown ot 
England to the eldest son of the King of the French. The 
truth is that John was felt to be really neither a Norman 
Duke nor an English King, and men most likely thought 
that, if they were to have a foreign ruler, Philip and Lewis 
would be better than John. 

6. Saint Lewis. — After the death of Philip, his son Lewis 
the Eighth, who had failed to get the Crown of England, 
reigned for a few years in France, from 1223 to 1226. Then 
came his son Lewis the Ninth, called Saifit Lewis, and most 
rightly so called, for he was perhaps the best King that ever 
reigned, unless it were the English Alfred. The only evil 
was that his personal goodness helped greatly to increase 
the power of the Crown, and so in the end to make the Kings 
of France absolute rulers. And in the like sort it helped 
greatly to increase the power of France among other nations. 
While Saint Lewis reigned in France, Henry the Third 
reigned in England from 12 16 to 1272. Henry made some 
attempts to get back his possessions in France ; but in 1259 



XL] SAINT LEWIS. 183 

peace was made, by which Henry kept nothing except his 
possessions in the South. In Saint Lewis's time also, but 
while he was still young and under the rule of his mother 
Blanche of Castile^ the dominions of the Counts of Toulouse 
were added to the royal possessions by a treaty made in 
1229. Thus the Kings of the French, mstead of being 
cooped up in Paris and Orleans^ as they had been up to 
the time of Philip Augustus, had the more part of their 
kingdom in their own hands. Their dominions now reached 
to the Mediterranean Sea, and the}^ had havens on all the 
three seas, the Mediterranean, the Ocean, and the Chan7iel. 
And, though Provence and the other great fiefs of the King- 
dom of Burgundy were not joined to France for a long time to 
come, still from this time they began to have a connexion 
with France. The French Kings began to meddle with their 
affairs in a way which may be thought to have paved the 
way for their conquest at a later time. Generally, just as the 
German Kingdom was getting weaker, and was now in truth 
splitting to pieces, the French Kingdom was getting stronger 
<a.nd more united ; and from this time France was always 
reckoned amongst the foremost powers of Europe. 

7. The Internal Affairs of England, — The internal and 
constitutional affairs of England will be spoken of more at 
large in the special History of England. But a few words 
must be given to them, as they are closely connected with the 
general course of European affairs. The thirteenth century 
was a time of great changes, a time, so to speak, of begin- 
nings and endings, throughout the world. As both Empires 
practically came to an end, as the Kingdom of France, in 
anything like its later extent and importance, may be said to 
have begun, so now the Constitution of England began to 
put on the shape which it has kept ever since. Under John 
and Henry the Third we see how the fondness of the 
Angevin Kings for foreigners of all kinds drove the natives 



i84 THE SWABIAN EMPERORS, [r^AP. 

of England, whether of English or Norman dercent, to 
join together against the strangers. The whole nation 
joined together to force King John in 12 15 to grant the 
Great Charter^ by which all the old rights and good laws 
which he had broken were confirmed. This Great Charter 
the Kings who followed had to confirm over and over again, 
because they were always trying to break it; and it has been 
the groundwork of English freedom ever since. So apcain, 
in the time of Henry the Third, when the King's misgovern- 
ment and his favour to foreigners again drove the Barons 
and the whole people to rise against him, though the Popes 
again took the side of the King and excommunicated 
all who rose against him, we again find the whole English 
nation, nobles, clergy, and people, acting firmly together. In 
this war against Henry the Third the great leader was Simon 
of Montfort, the son of another Simon of whom we shall 
hear presently. He was, oddly enough, a Frenchman by 
birth, .but he inherited the Earldom of Leicester through 
his mother; and, when he came to England, he threw in 
his lot with his new country, and did in everything as a 
good Englishman. It'was by him that the Great Council of 
the Nation, which was now called by the French name of 
Parliament^ was made to take the form which it has borne 
ever since. Some kind of National Assembly was found 
in nearly every part of Western Europe. But in most 
countries the Assembly consisted of Estates; that is, repre- 
sentatives of the different classes of freemen in the nation. 
These, in most countries, were counted as three, Nobles^ 
Clergy^ and Coinmons, the Commons generally being only 
the citizens of the towns. This sort of constitution was 
set up in France by Philip the Fair, the grandson of 
Saint Lewis. The States came together in each country 
to grant money to the King, and to demand such changes 
in the laws or other reforms as might be needed. But 



XI.] SIMON OF MONTFORT. 185 

in France the States never met regularly, but only when it 
suited the King's purposes, or when he could not help calling 
them together. In England, on the other hand, the Parlia- 
ments went on far more regularly, so that England was never 
left without a national Assembly of some kind from the 
very beginning of things till now. And in England the 
Parliament took the particular form of an assembly with 
Two Houses. The Earls, Bishops, and other great men, 
grew into the House of Lords, and the House of Commofis 
was gradually formed out of the representatives of the people 
in general. First of all, the freeholders of each county were 
called on to send some of the knights of that county to 
represent them, and at last, when Earl Simon held a Par- 
liament in 1265, he called on the cities and boroughs to send 
each two of their citizens or burgesses. Earl Simon was 
killed that same year in the battle of Evesha7n, but the 
system of representation which he had brought in was before 
long firmly established under King Edward the First. 

8. The Conquest of Ireland. — Duringthis time many things 
happened between the English' Kings and their vassals the 
Kings of Scots and Princes of Wales, which will be better told 
in the History of England. But it must be mentioned here 
that it was in the reign of Henry the Second that the English 
dominion in Ireland began. At the very beginning of his 
reign, in 1155, King Henry got a Bull from Pope Had7'-ian the 
Fourth, who was an Englishman and the only Englishman 
that ever was Pope, giving him leave to conquer Ireland : 
thus had the Popes taken upon themselves to dispose of 
kingdoms. But it was not till 1170 that some nobles and 
other private adventurers went over into Ireland under pre- 
tence of helping a banished Irish king called De^nnot. Two 
years afterwards King Henry went over himself to receive 
the homage of the whole country. From that time the Kings 
of England always claimed to be Lords of Ireland, and the 



i86 THE SWABIAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

city of Dublin and a greater or less part of the island was 
always under the English power ; but it was not for many 
ages that they really got possession of all Ireland, and cruel 
wars long went on between the English settlers and the 
native Irish. 

9. The Loss of Jerusalem. — A large part of the history of 
this time might come under the general head of Crusades. 
The first Crusades or Holy Wars had been undertaken 
to win back the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels; but 
after a while both the name and the thing began to be 
greatly abused, and Crusades were preached against almost 
anyone with whom the Popes were at enmity. The First 
Crusade, as we have already seen, led to the establishment 
of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. The chief 
strength of the kingdom lay in the two orders of military 
monks, the Templars and the Hospitallers or Knights of 
Saint John^ and many warriors from all parts of Christen- 
dom went to serve for a while in the Holy Land as a good 
work. Still the Kings of Jerusalem had much ado to keep 
their little kingdom from the attacks of the neighbouring 
Mahometan powers, and several new Crusades had to be 
made to help them, some of which were led by the 
greatest princes in Europe. Thus in 1147 the Second 
Crusade was preached by Saint Bernard^ one of the holiest 
men of the time, and who is called the last of the Fathers 
of the Church. Conrad King of the Romans and Lewis the 
Seventh, King of the French, both went on this Crusade, but 
they were not able to do any great things. And there soon 
arose a power in Egypt which became more dangerous 
to the Christians of the East than any of the other Ma- 
hometan powers that were there. We have seen there had 
been for some time a separate line of Caliphs in Egypt ; these 
were called the Fati77iites, as professing to be the descendants 
oi Fatima^ the daughter of Mahomet. But in 11 71 their 



XI.] THE CRUSADES. 187 

power was put down by Joseph surnamed Saladi?t, who 
brought back Egypt under the spiritual power of the Cahph 
of Bagdad, much as if the Eastern Church had been brought 
under the power of the Bishops of Rome. Saladin became 
the greatest Mahometan chief of his tim^e, and in 1 187 he took 
Jerusalem and drove the Christians out of the greater part 
of the kingdom. Thus far all the Crusades since the First 
had been waged for the purpose of defending the Christian 
possession of Jerusalem. We have now again to come to 
Crusades which were waged, as the First had been, to win 
back the Holy City from the Infidels, as well as to save 
the small fragment of the kingdom which was left. 

10. The Later Crusades in Palestine. — The loss of Jeru- 
salem roused the spirit of all Western Christendom. King 
Henry of England took the cross, but he died two years later, 
without ever setting out for the Holy Land. But in 11 89 the 
Emperor F^'ederick set out by land, but was drowned on 
the way ; and in 11 90 Philip King of the French and his 
great vassal Richard, the new King of the English, went 
to the Holy Land by sea. King Richard did many great 
exploits; but the princes quarrelled among themselves, 
so that Jerusalem was not won back; but some parts ot 
Palestine were still left to the Christians, and they were 
allowed to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Of the Third 
Crusade we shall have to speak by itself, as it did nothing 
for the Holy Land at all. But in 1228 the Emperor 
F7'ederick the Second, who claimed to be King of Jerusalem 
in right of his wife, notwithstanding the opposition ot 
Pope Gt^egory the Ninth, really went to the Holy Land, 
and won Jerusalem by a treaty with the Egyptian Sultan 
Kainel, and was crowned King there. He was the last 
Christian King who really reigned at Jerusalem. For in 
T244 the Holy City was again lost by the Christians, being 
takeii by the Mahometan Choi^asmians, and it has never been 



i88 THE SWAB IAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

won back again. The Popes, instead of helping the Emperor 
to win back his kingdom, were always excommunicating and 
preaching Crusades against him. The Christians however 
still kept some small parts of the kingdom, and in 1248 
Saint Lewis, the King of the French, set out on a Crusade ; 
but, instead of going straight to Palestine, he first attacked 
Egypt, as being the best way of winning the Holy Land. But 
he was taken prisoner in Egypt ; and though he did after- 
wards reach Palestine, yet he could not win back Jerusalem. 
At last he came back to France in 1254, having done little 
or nothing for the common cause, but having shown his own 
courage and goodness in a wonderful way. In 1270 he set 
out on another Crusade ; but this time he began by besieging 
Tunis, and died there. In 1270 Edward the son of King 
Henry of England, afterwards the great King Edward the 
First, went on another Crusade, and did something to stop 
the final overthrow of the Christians in Palestine, though 
even he could not win back Jerusalem. At last, in 1291, 
Acre, the last town which the Christians held in the Holy 
Land, was taken by the Mahometans, and the Christian 
Kingdom of Jerusalem came altogether to an end. But 
the Emperors always called themselves Kings of Jeru- 
salem as well as of Germa7iy, and the same vain title has 
been borne and disputed about by several other European 
sovereigns. 

II. The Latin Conquest of Constantinople. — No one 
perhaps would have expected that the Eastern Empire., the 
great bulwark of Christendom against the Saracens and 
Turks, and which the first Crusaders had professed to go 
forth to defend, would be actually overthrown by a cru- 
sading army. We have seen that the Komnenian Emperors, 
following in the wake of the first Crusaders, were able to win 
back a large part of the Byzantine dominions in Asia. The 
tv/o Emperors who reigned after Alexios, John and Manuel, 



XI.} LATIN CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 189 

were both great warriors. John, who reigned from 1 1 1 8 to 
1 143, did much really to restore the strength of the Empire ; 
but Manuel^ who reigned from 1 153 to 11 80, was rather a bold 
knight-errant than either a good ruler or a great general. 
He had to contend with many enemies both in Europe and 
in Asia. In his time Greece was several times ravaged 
by the fleets of the Kings of Sicily j he had to wage wars 
with Hungary, and at last he was defeated in a great 
battle against the Turks in 1176. After his time the 
Eastern Empire again began to decline; there were many 
internal revolutions ; Emperors were set up and put down ; 
the Bulgarians revolted, and a separate Emperor set himself 
up in the isle of Cypi-us. At last, in 1201, several Western 
princes, among the chief of whom were Baldwin Count of 
Fla7iders and Boniface Marquess of Montferrat in Italy, 
were setting out on a Crusade, and they came to Venice to 
ask for ships to take them to the Holy Land. Venice, it 
will be remembered, had never been part of the Western 
Empire, but had always kept on its nominal allegiance to the 
Emperors of the East, till it had gradually become quite in- 
dependent, as it was now. The three Italian cities, Venice, 
Genoa, and Pisa, were now the greatest naval powers in 
Europe. The Doge or Duke of Venice, Henry Dandolo, 
agreed to let the Crusaders have ships and to go with 
them himself ; only the Crusaders were to conquer for the 
Venetians the town of Zara in Dalmatia to which they laid 
claim. Pope Dtnocent protested against this as being no part 
of the business of a Crusade. Yet they not only took Zara, 
but agreed to help Alexias Ajigelos, the son of an Emperor 
of the East who had been deposed, in getting back the 
Empire. This they actually did in 1203. But, a? the 
Romans or Greeks (whichever we are to call them) of Con- 
stantinople presently revolted, and slew the Emperors who 
had been put in by the Crusaders, the Crusaders in 1704 



I90 THE SWAB I AN EMPERORS. [chap. 



again took the city ; and the Roman Empire of the East ma^ 
now be said to have come to an end. 

12. The Later Greek Empire. — When the Crusaders had 
taken Constantinople, they went on to deal with the whole 
Eastern Empire as their own. They set up Cotmt Baldwin 
as Emperor of Constantinople, and they divided among 
themselves as much of the Empire as they could get. This 
was the beginning of what was called the Latin Empire of 
Constantinople : the word Latin being now often used, as 
opposed to Greek, to express all those who admitted the 
supremacy of the Roman Church and who used Latin as 
their religious and official language. Among the Latin 
powers which now won settlements in the East, the 
Venetians especially got possession of many of the 
islands and important points of the coast, which was the 
beginning of their great Eastern dominion. Some of the 
Venetian and other Latin possessions were never won back 
by the Greeks, but on the other hand the Latins were far 
from conquering the whole Empire. The Greeks main- 
tained their independence in Epeiros and at Nikaia and 
Trapezous or Trebizond in Asia ; in both these latter cities 
Greek princes reigned with the title of Emiperor. Thus the 
Eastern Empire was cut up into a crowd of small princi- 
palities, Greek and Frank (the meaning of this last word in 
the East has already been explained). Despots of EpeiroSy 
Dukes of Athens, Princes of Achaia, and what not ; the Latin 
Emperors at Constantinople being supposed to be lords 
over all the Frank settlers. But, as the Emperors who reigned 
at Nikaia, Theodore Laskaj-es and John Vatatzes, were veiy' 
wise and good princes, the Empire of Nikaia, which professed 
to be the true continuation of the Roman Empire at Con- 
stantinople, grew and flourished ; and in 1261 the Emperor 
Michael Palaiologos won back Constantinople, and the 
Empire of the East in some sort began again. But it never 



XL] THE LATER GREEK EMPIRE. 



191 



won back its old power, for, besides the provinces which 
were held by the Mahometans and the new dominions of 
the Venetians, some of the Greek and Frank princes still 
went on reigning, and were independent of the Greek Em- 
peror at Constantinople. The Empire of T^-^^^/^^/z^ especially 
outlived the restored Empire of Constantinople. In truth 
this restored Empire of Constantinople was little more 
than the most powerful of several Greek states which went 
on from this time till they were all swallowed up by the 
Turks. But it must be remembered that the Emperors 
of Constantinople still called themselves Emperors of the 
Romans, and professed to continue the old Roman succes- 
sion. From this time the Eastern Empire became more 
strictly hereditary than it had been of old, and the crown 
remained with very little interruption in the family of 
Palaiologos, till the Empire was finally destroyed by the 
Ottommi Turks, 

13. Crusades against the Albigenses.— We have just seen 
how a Crusade, which was meant to be a war for the defence of 
Christendom against the unbelievers, could be turned into an. 
attack made by one set of Christians against another. But 
when the Fourth Crusade was turned about into an attack 
on Zara and Constantinople, Pope Innocent at least did what 
he could to hinder such a falling away from the original 
design of a Crusade. But presently Innocent himself caused 
a Crusade to be preached, no longer against Mahometans, 
but against Christians who were looked on as heretics. In 
the South of Gaul, both in those parts which were fiefs of 
the King of the French and in those which were held of 
the Emperors as Kings of Burgundy, many men had fallen 
away into doctrines which both the Eastern and the Western 
Church condemned. Those who held these doctrines were 
commonly called Albigenses, from the city of Albi. The 
chief princes in those parts were the Counts of Toulouse and 



192 THE SWAB IAN EMPERORS. [chap 

the Counts of P^^ovence : each of them held fiefs both of the 
Emperor and of the King of the French ; but the County of 
Toulouse itself was a fief of France, while the County of 
Provence was of course a fief of the Empire, The Counts of 
Provence at this time were of the house of the Kings of x^^ragun. 
In 1208 a Crusade was preached against Ray?no7ta Louut of 
Touhmse.. which was carried on at first by Simon of Mo7itfort, 
the father of the Simon who was so famous in English 
history, and afterwards by Lewis the Eighth., King of the 
French. Simon even defeated Peter Y^rvg of Arrooiz in a 
great battle, and obtained possession of Toulouse. It looked 
at one time as if the house of Montfort were going to be 
established as sovereigns in the South of Gaul: but the end 
of the matter was that the heresy of the Albigenses was put 
down by cruel persecutions, and that in 1229 the county 
of Toulouse was, as we have seen, incorporated with the 
Kingdom of France. 

14. Crusades against Sicily. — In this way the Crusades, 
which had first been preached only against the infidels, next 
began to be preached against heretics. The next stage was 
to preach them against any one who was an enemy of the 
Pope. Thus Crusades were preached against the Emperor 
Frederick, and after his death they were preached against 
his son Manfred King of Sicily, who began to reign in 1258. 
Manfred was a wise and brave King, and he greatly helped 
the Ghibelins in other parts of Italy; things almost looked 
as if a Kingdom of all Italy was about to arise in the House 
of Swabia. But the Popes were of course the enemies of 
Manfred. Even while King Conr-ad was alive. Pope htnocent 
the Fourth had in 1253 professed to give the crown of Sicily 
to Edimtnd son of Henry the Third of England. But 
nothing came of that : so in 1262 Pope Urban the Fotirth 
offered the crown to Charles Count of Anjou, the brother 
of Saint Lewis, who was also Count of Provence in right 



XI.] CRUSADES IN SICILY AND PRUSSIA. 193 

of his wife. Charles got together an army of French Cru- 
saders, and in 1 266 he overthrew and slew Manfred in battle. 
He then took the kingdom himself; and when, two years 
afterwards, young Conradin., the nephew of Manfred, tried to 
win back the crown, he was defeated in battle, and was be- 
headed by order of Charles. Charles was thus King of Sicily y 
both of the island and of the mainland; but in 1282 the 
island of Sicily revolted against the oppression of him and 
his Frenchmen, and the Sicilians chose as their King Peter 
King of Arago7t, who had married the daughter of Manfred. 
A long war followed ; the end of which was that Charles's 
descendants kept the kingdom on the mainland, which was 
commonly called the Kingdom of Naples, while the island 
of Sicily became a separate kingdom in the House of 
Aragon : but m. both kingdoms the Kings called themselves 
Kings of Sicily, so that when the island and the mainlana 
were joined again long afterwards, the kingdom was called 
the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 

15. Crusades in the North of Europe. — Besides the real 
Crusades against the Mahometans and what we may call 
the mock Crusades against heretics and ether enemies of 
the Popes, there were also, as we have already seen. Cru- 
sades against the heathens in the North of Europe. The 
countries on the east side of the Baltic, Prussia, Litlmania, 
Livonia, and Esthonia, were still idolatrous. Poland had 
become Christian at the end of the tenth century, and the 
Polish Dukes and Kings had much trouble with their heathen 
neighbours. Both Poland and Lithuania were much smaller 
states now than they became afterwards. Russia at this 
time w^as a much greater state, and came much further to 
the west, than it did again till quite late times, for the Poles 
and Lithuanians made large conquests at the expense of 
Russia. Both Russia and Poland were at this time often 
divided between several princes ; and one or two of the great 

O 



194 THE SWAB-IAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

cities, especially the famous Novgorod in the north, were able 
to make themselves into republics. But both Poland and 
Russia were almost wholly cut off from the sea by their heathen 
neighbours, and at one time it seemed as if the chief power in 
those parts was likely to fall into the hands of Denmark, as 
several of the Danish Kings, in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries, made large conquests on the southern and eastern 
shores of the Baltic. But in the reign of Frederick the 
Second great changes were made in those parts by the 
establishment of the Teutonic Knights. They were first in- 
vited by some of the Polish princes to help them against the 
heathen Prussians. Under their Grand Master Hermann of 
Salza, they were commissioned by the Emperor Frederick and 
by Pope Gregory the Ninth, who preached a Crusade against 
the Prussians, to settle themselves in those parts about 1230, 
They presently conquered Prussia and Eastern Pomeraniaj 
and in 1237 another order, called the Knights of the Sword, 
who were established in Livonia, were joined with the Teu- 
tonic Knights. The territories of the Order now quite cut ofl 
Poland, Lithuania, and Russia from the Baltic, and hindered 
any further advance of Denmark in those parts. The wars of 
the Knights in those lands were looked on as holy wars, and 
many men came from other parts of Europe to join them in 
fighting against the heathens, just as they had done against 
the Saracens in the East. But the government of an order 
can never be a really good government, and the Knights often 
showed themselves quite as dangerous neighbours to the 
Poles, whom they had first come to help, as to the Prussians 
and other heathens whom they had come to fight against. 

16. Advance of the Christians in Spain. — While Crusades 
against heathens and Mahometans were thus going on in 
the North and East, the whole history of Spain might be 
called one long Crusade on the part of the Christians who 
were winning back the land, step by step, from the Saracens 



XL] THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN. 195 

and Moors. The advance of the Christians was still checked 
by the foundation of new Mahometan dynasties, which passed 
over from Africa into Spain. As the Ahnoravides passed over 
in the eleventh century, so ih.^ Almohades, who were much like 
a kind of Mahometan Crusaders, passed over in the twelfth. 
Alfonso the Eighth, who, as being the chief prince in Spain, 
called himself Emperor, withstood them for a while ; but, after 
his death in 1 159, Castile and Leon were again divided, and the 
Almohades were able again largely to extend the Mahometan 
territories. In 1195 Jacob, the Caliph of the Almohades, at 
the head of a kind of general Mahometan Crusade, won the 
great battle of Alar cos over Alfonso of Castile, the grandson 
of the Emperor Alfonso ; and as the different Spanish Kings 
were constantly quarrelling between themselves, it almost 
seemed as if the Mahometans were going again to get the upper 
hand. But when the great Caliph Jacob was dead, and the 
Christians began to join together again, the Almohade prince 
Mahomet was utterly defeated in 12 12 at the battle of Tolosaj 
and from that time the Mahometan power in Spain steadily 
went down. Ferdinand the Third, called Saint Ferdiiiand, 
who reigned over Castile from 1217 to 1252 and who in 1230 
finally united the Kingdoms of Castile and Leon, won back a 
large territory, including the great cities of Seville and 
Cordova. The Kings of Portugal and Aragon also were 
pressing their conquests in the West and East of the 
peninsula. The most famous of the Kings of Aragon was 
Jajnes the Conqueror, who reigned from 1213 to 1276. At 
last nothing was left of the Mahometan power in Spain save 
only the Kingdom of Granada in the South, which began in 
1237, and which, having a good barrier of jnountains, lasted 
much longer than any one would have looked for. From this 
time there were five kingdoms in Spain, Castile, Aragon,PortU' 
gal, Navarre, and Granada. Of these Castile was the greatest 
^and Navarre the smallest : but, as both Castile and Portugal 

O 2 



196 THE SWABIAN EMPERORS. [chap. 

were chiefly employed with their wars with the Mahometans, 
Aragon was the Spanish kingdom which had most to do with 
the general affairs of Europe, as we have seen when speak- 
ing of the history of Sicily and Southern Gaul. 

17. The Invasions of the Moguls. — While Christians and 
Mahometans were thus fighting in various parts of Europe 
and Asia, a new power, a Turanian power, which was neither 
Christian nor Mahometan, threatened to overwhelm both 
alike. These were the Moguls, commonly known in Europe 
as Tartars, who in the thirteenth century burst forth from 
the unknown lands of Asia, beyond either the Saracens 
or the Turks, much as Attila and his Huns had burst 
forth eight hundred years before. They began to rise to 
power under Tejnujin or Jenghiz Khan, who reigned from 
1206 to 1227. During the whole of the century he and 
his descendants went on conquering and destroying through 
the greater part of Europe and Asia. In some parts 
they only ravaged, and ravaged more cruelly than either the 
Saracens or the Turks had ever done; in others they founded 
lasting dynasties. In religion they seem to have been a 
kind of Deists, acknowledging one God, but not accepting 
either the Christian or the Mahometan law. But all rehgions, 
Christian, Mahometan, and heathen, were freely tolerated 
among them, and in the end most of them became Ma- 
hometans. In Europe Batou Khan pressed all through 
Russia, Poland, and Hungary, as far as the borders of Ger- 
many. The furthest point which they reached to the west 
was Lignitz in Silesia, the border province of Poland and 
Bohemia, which had been Polish, but which now was Bohe- 
mian. They there, in 1241, gained a battle over the Teutonic 
Knights and all the princes of those parts. All Europe 
was naturally frightened at such an invasion, and the 
Emperor Frederick tried to stir up all the other Kings to 
a Crusade against these enemies, who were worse than 



XI.] THE MOGUL INVASIONS. 197 

Saracens or Prussians. But the Moguls pressed no further 
westwards ; tliey ravaged Hungary and the countries to 
the north of it, but the only lasting dynasty which they set 
up in Europe was at Kasan on the Volga, whence they 
held Russia in their dependence. Thus Rttssia, which had at 
one time seemed likely to become an important power in 
Europe, was altogether thrust back for a long time. The 
Lithuajiia7is conquered all the western provinces, even the 
old capital of Kiev, and the Russian Dukes, first of Vladimir 
and then of Moscow, were looked on as inere subjects of 
the Mogul Khans. In Asia, besides conquests in China 
and other parts which do not concern us, the Moguls over- 
threw -most of the existing powers, and founded a lasting 
dynasty in Persia. The Chorasmians, from the lands east of 
the Caspian, flying before them, overthrew, as we have seen, 
the restored Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1258 
Holagou, another grandson of Jenghiz, took Bagdad, and put 
an end to the Abbasside Caliphate, though a line professing 
to be the descendants of the Abbasside Caliphs went on in 
Egypt, but without any temporal power. The power of 
the Seljuk Turks was also quite broken up, and the Greek 
Emperors at Nikaia were greatly frightened, though in the 
end the invasion of the Moguls helped the Eastern Empire 
to last a little longer by destroying the power of the Seljuks. 
But it was only for a little while, because the overthrow of 
the Seljuk Turks made a way for the growth of the far more 
famous Turkish power of the Ottomans, whose beginning 
came a little later than the time which we have now reached. 
18. Summary. — Thus we see that the time of the Swabian 
Emperors was a time of still greater changes than that of the 
Franconian Emperors. In their time much was done towards 
bringing the various powers of Europe into something like 
the state in which they are now. The power of the Empire 
came pretty well to an end, and Germany and Italy began 



198 THE SWAB IAN EMPERORS. [ch. xi. 

to be collections of separate states, independent or nearly so, 
as they have been ever since till quite lately. The Eastern 
Empire was broken up ; the greatness of Venice began ; 
the Caliphate perished, and the Crusades came to an 
end. But, while Christendom lost in the East, it gained in 
the West by the great advances of the Christians in Spain. 
Castile now takes the first place in the Spanish penin- 
sula. In the like sort Frajice is now fully established as the 
leading power of Gaul. In England Normans and English 
are fully reconciled ; the Angevin Kings ^ by the loss of the 
more part of their foreign dominions, are driven to become 
national sovereigns, and that parliamentary constitution is 
established which has lasted ever since. The north of Eu- 
rope was further from putting on its present form than the 
west; but the establishment of the Teutoiiic Order, the check 
given to the power of Denmark, the extension of Lithuania, 
and the subjection of Russia to the Moguls are all events which 
had an important effect on later times. This was also a time 
of great intellectual progress. U7iive7'sities began to arise, 
among which Paris and Oxford v^oxe two of the most famous 
north of the Alps. In England were Latin historians and 
other writers, such as William of Malmesbury, John of 
Salisbury^ and Matthew Paris, and the great Friar Roger 
Bacon,vfh.o forestalled many of the inventions of later times. 
In France prose writing began with Villehardouin, who wrote 
an account of the taking of Constantinople. Italian litera- 
ture began under Frederick the Second, and in Germany this 
was the time of the Mi7ine singers or love-poets. The pointed 
or Gothic style of architecture also began to corfie into use in 
the last years of the twelfth century, and flourished greatly 
in the thirteenth. Altogether! this was, both in Europe and 
Asia, a time when old systems were falling and new ones were 
rising, and in most parts we may see the beginnings of the 
state of things which we see now. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. 

Decay of the Empire ; the great Interregmtni ( I )— double election of 
Richard and Alfonso {i)— election of Rudolf ; his grant of Austria 
to his son (2) — reigns of Adolf and Albert (2) — reign of Henry the 
Seventh ; his career in Italy (2) — history of "John of Bohemia (2) — 
reigns of Charles the Fourth, Wenceslaus, and Siegmund {2)— reigns 
of Albe?'t the Second and Frederick the Third (2) — new posiiion of 
the Empire ; its connexion with the House of Austria (2) — papacy 
of Gregory the Tenth ; of Boniface the Eighth (3) —the Avignon 
Popes; suppression of the Teijtplars (3) — the Great Schism {3) — the 
reforming Councils, Pisa, Cofistanz, and Basel (4) — Councils of 
Ferrara and Florence ; reconciliation with the Eastern Church (4) 
— intellectual pre-eminence of Italy (5) — study of the Roman law ; 
revival of classical learning (5) — invention of printing and gun- 
powder (5) — growth of the tyrants m Italy ; the Visconti at Milan 
(6) — constitutions of Venice, Genoa, and Florence {^) — revolution of 
Rienzi at Rome (7) — return of the Popes ; their temporal power (7) 
— the Two Sicilies ; rivalry of the Houses of Anjou and Aragoft (8) 
■ — dealings of England with Wales and Scotland (9) — the Hundred 
Year's' war between France and England { 10) — eloign of Edzvardthe 
Third to the crown of F?'ance ; victories of the English (10) — Peace 
of Bretigny ; independence and loss of Aguitaine {10) — wars of 
Henry the IHfth ; Treaty of Troyes (10) — exploits of foan of Arc ; 
French conquest of Aquitaine (10) — gi^owth of France ; annexa- 
tions in the Kingdom of Burgundy ; defeat of the French at 
Courtray {ii)^beginning of the Swiss League ; the three Forest 
Cantons ; battle of Morgarten (12) — the eight Cantons ; battle of 
Sempach (12) — relations of the League to the Empire, France, and 
Austria (12) — beginning of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy ; acgui- 



200 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE, [chap. 

sition of Flanders (13) — reigns of John the Fearless and Philip tkt 
Good ; advance of the Burgundian power zvithin the E77ipire (13) 
— reign of Charles the Bold ; his rivalry with Lewis the Eleventh 
(13) — his schemes and conqtiests ; his war with the Confederates; 
battles of Gf'andson, Morat, and Nancy (13) — effects of the Bur- 
gundian War on the Confederates (13) — the Greek Empire of Con- 
stantinople ; its advance and decline (14)— rzj^ of the Ottomzn 
Turks ; their conquests in Asia (14) — their advance in Europe; 
institution of the Janissaries (14) — rise of Timour ; he defeats 
Bajazet at Angora (15) — reign of Mahomet the Second ; fall 
of Constantinople (16) — conquest of Greece and Trehizond ; 
taking of Otranto ; death of Mahomet (16) — civil war in Castile ; 
battle of Najara {17) — wars of Aragon with Provence and 
France (17) — maritime discoveries and conquests of the Portu- 
guese (17) — union of Castile and Aragon ; cotiquest of Granada; 
beginning of the greatness of Spain (17) — state of the Scandi- 
navian Kingdoms ; Union of Calmar (18) — the House of Olden- 
iurg in Demna7^k ; affairs of Sleswick and Holstein (18) 
— conversion of Lithuania; its union with Poland ; partition op 
Prussia (19) — delivej'ance of Russia from the Moguls (19) — the 
Angevin Kings in Hungary ; reign of Siegmund , his defeat at 
Nikopolis (20) — exploits of Huniades ; defeat of Wladislaus at 
Varna (20) — reign of Matthias Corvinus ; designs of Austria on 
Hungary (20) — growth of Universities (21) — writers of history 
and poetry {2l)—fnal triumph of the English language (21) — 
theology and philosophy (21) — levelling doctrines taught ; condition 
of the villains (21) — tise of infantry in war (21) — state of architec- 
ture (21) — Summary (22). 

I. The Great Interregnum. — After the death of Frederick 
the Second the power and dignity of the Western Empire 
greatly declined. Italy now began quite to fall away. Many 
of the Kings who were chosen in Germany never went to 
Rome to be crowned Emperors at all, and those who did so, 
though their passing through the country always made some 
changes at the time, could not keep any lasting hold on the 
Kalian Kingdom. The Kingdom of Burgundy quite broke 



XII.] THE GREAT INTERREGNUM. 20i 

in pieces ; some of its princes and commonwealths still kept 
on their nominal connexion with the Empire, but others passed, 
one by one, by one means or another, under the power of 
France Thus began that growth of France at the cost of 
the Kingdoms belonging to the Empire, of which we had a 
sort of foreshadowing in the battle of Bouvines, and which has 
gone on ever since till it was stopped only yesterday. In 
fact, after the death of Frederick the Second, his successors, 
though they were still called Kings and Emperors of the 
Rofnans, were really very little more than Kings of Germany, 
and even in Germany their power was always growing less 
and less. The time from the death of Conrad in 1254 to the 
year 1273 is commonly called the Great Interregnum, because, 
though more than one King was chosen during that time, 
there was no King really acknowledged by all Germany, much 
less by other parts of the Empire. In 1256 some of the 
Electors chose Richard Earl of Cornwall, brother of King 
Henry the Third of England, and others chose Alfonso King 
of Castile. Alfonso never came to Germany at all. Richard 
came and was crowned King, but he never was crowned 
Emperor, and he kept very little power in Germany, and 
spent most of his time in England, where we often hear of 
him in English history. He died in 1271 , the year before his 
brother King Henry. This long Inte^'regnum was of course 
a time of great confusion in Germany. The Empire quite 
lost its hold over the neighbouring countries, and the princes 
in. Germany itself of course greatly enlarged their own 
powers while there was no King to keep them in check. In 
short, every sort of lawlessness and wickedness was rife 
through the whole land. At last men felt that an end must 
be put to such a state of things, and at last in 1273 a King 
dwelling in the land was once more chosen. 

2. Kings of the Houses of Habsburg and Liizelburg". 
— The King who was now chosen was not one of the great 



202 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [char 

Princes of the Empire ; he was Rzidolf Count of Habs- 
Imrg, a castle in Aargan in the south of Swabia. He 
reigned till 1292, and was a brave and wise man, who did 
much to restore peace and to subdue Oitocar King of 
Boheinia and other enemies, but he never was crowned 
Emperor. He was the founder of the House of Habsburg 
or of Austria^ from which so many Kings and Emperors 
were afterwards chosen. For the old Margraves and 
Dukes of Austria had come to an end, and the Duchy was 
granted by Rudolf to his son Albei^t, from whom the later 
Dukes, Kings, and Emperors of the Austrian House all 
sprang. Neither Rudolf nor either of the two next Kings, 
Adolf oi Nassau and Rudolfs son Albert, was ever crowned 
Emperor. Albert was the first Austrian King, and there M^ere 
no more for some time to come, for, when he was murdered 
in 1308, the Electors chose Henry Count of Luzelbu?g 
or Litxemburg, who reigned as Henry the Seventh. In his 
time it seemed as if the Empire were going to win back 
again all its old power. For he went into Italy and was 
crowned King at Milan and Emperor at Rome in 13 12, but 
in the next year, he died, by poison as was thought, and his 
great schemes died with him. He was however able to provide 
for his own family as Rudolf had done, for he contrived to get 
the Kingdom of Bohemia for his son John, by marrying him 
to the daughter of the last King Wenceslaus. This King 
John figures a good deal in the history of the time, but not 
so much either in his own kingdom or in Germany as in 
going about as a kind of knight-errant in Italy and France. 
At last he died in the battle of Crecy between the French 
and the English, of which we^ shall speak presently. He 
was never Emperor or King of the Romans himself, but 
several of his descendants were, as we shall soon see. On the 
death of "Henry the Seventh, there was a double election be- 
tween Z^w/jDuke of Bavaria and Frederick Duke oi Austria^ 



XII.] THE LUZELBURG EMPERORS. 203 

the son of King Albert. But Lewis reigned in the end, and 
in 1 328 he was crowned Emperor. He had great quarrels with 
Pope Jolui the Tiventy-second^ and each professed to depose 
the other, just as Gregory the Seventh and Henry the Fourth 
had done. He was again declared deposed in 1346 by Pope 
Clement the Sixth, and then John of Bohemia persuaded 
the Electors to declare the Em.pire vacant and to elect his 
son Charles, v/ho reigned as Charles the Fottrih. He was 
crowned Emperor in 1325, and, what one would hardly 
have expected, he was crowned King of Burgundy at Aries 
in 1365. Charles made a good King in his own Kingdom 
of Bohemia, but he sadly lowered the Empire both in Ger- 
many and in Italy. He is chiefly remembered for granting 
a charter known as the Golden Bull, by which the way of 
choosing the Emperor was finally settled, but by which the 
powers of the Empire were still further lessened in favour of 
the princes. Then followed several Kings who were never 
crowned Emperors, and on whom we need not dwell long. 
One of them, Wenceslaus, son of the Emperor Charles, so far 
from taking heed to Italy, took none to Germany, and kept 
always in Bohemia. At last, in 1410, his brother Siegmund 
was chosen King, and he was crowned Emperor in 1433. He 
was already Margrave of P'^tttdenbutg and King of Hun- 
gary, and he afterwards became King of Boheini;i. The truth 
is that the Empire by itself was growing so weak and so poor 
that it was found to be needful to choose some prince for 
Emperor who had dominions of his own which would enable 
him to keep up his dignity. And in Siegmund we get the 
beginning of that special connexion between the E7npire and 
the Kingdo7n of Hujigary which afterwards became of great 
importance. Siegmund was specially zealous in the attempts 
for reforming the Church, of which we shall hear presently. 
He died in 1437. Then came his ^Qv\.-m.-\2i^ Albert Duke 
of Ajistria, who died the next year, and was succeeded by 



204 THF DECLINE OF THE 'EMPIRE. [chap. 



another Austrian Prince. Frederick Duke of Steiermark of 
Styria. His was a very long reign, lasting from 1440 to 
1493, but he himself did nothing memorabie. In 1452 
he was crowned Emperor at Rome, being the last Em- 
peror who was crowned there. From the time of Siegmund 
we may look on the Empire as putting on quite a new cha- 
racter. Neither as Emperor nor as King of Germany was 
the Emperor any longer the chief prince of Europe. But the 
Empire was now held by princes who were powerful through 
their dominions both in and out of Germany, Kings of 
Hungary, Dukes of Austria, and so forth. And from the 
time of Albert the Second, though the Emperors were still 
always elected, yet the Electors always chose a member of 
the House of Austria, and most commonly the head of that 
House. Thus from this time the Emperors were again very 
powerful Princes, though it was not from the Empire that 
they drew their chief strength. The House of Austria lent 
its strength to the Empire, and the Empire lent its dignity to 
the House of Au.stria, and, before the death of Frederick the 
Third, the German Emperor was again the- only Emperor. 
How this came about we shall see presently. 

3. The Popes at Rome and Avignon. — We left the Popes 
disputing and waging war against the Emperor Frederick the 
Second and his descendants both in Germany and in Sicily. 
There were however some Popes who gave their minds to 
better things. Thus, nearly about the same time that Rudolf 
was chosen King, a very good Pope, Gregory the Tenth, was 
chosen in 1271. Indeed Gregory had a good deal to do 
with the election of Rudolf, for his great wish was to put an 
end to all the strifes and confusions which were going on in 
Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, and to make all Western 
Europe join together in an attempt to win back the Holy 
Land. He even brought about for the moment the recon- 
ciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches, and, between 



xii.] THE POPES OF A VIGNON. 



205 



him and King Rudolf and King Edward in England, it 
might have seemed that the whole v/orld was going to start 
afresh with a good beginning. But Gregory only reigned a 
little while ; he died in 1276, and the real power and glory 
of the Popes died with him. Boniface' the Eighth^ who 
reigned from 1294 to 1303, tried to get back all the 
powers which any of the earlier Popes had ever made 
use of. But the times were no longer suited for this. The 
more Europe began to settle down into a system of distinct 
nations, and the more the Popes began to put on the cha- 
racters of Italian princes, the less were they able to act as 
rulers of the whole world even in purely ecclesiastical matters. 
Boniface the Eighth quarrelled with Philip the Fair, the 
King of the French, and in the end Philip sent and seized 
him, and he died soon after. The next Pope but one, 
Clement the Fifth, was a Pope of PhiHp^s own choosing, 
and was quite at his beck and call. He left off living at 
Rome and moved his Court to Avignoji in Provence, just 
outside the French border, and in the dominions of the 
French King of Naples. He was thus more within the 
power of his master. For seventy years the Popes lived at 
Avignon instead of in their own place at Rome, a time which 
men called the Babylonish Captivity. Of course this greatly 
weakened their power. In Clement's time he and Philip 
joined together to destroy the order of the Templars which 
had done such great things in the Holy Wars. We can well 
believe that many corruptions had come into the order, but 
no one can beheve the monstrous tales which the Pope and 
the King got up against them, as if they had cast aside all 
religion and morals altogether. It was no doubt the wealth 
of the knights which Philip wished to seize ; so the order 
was suppressed throughout Europe, and in France many of 
its members were cruelly put to death. The next Pope, John 
the Twenty-second, had, as we before said, great disputes 



2o6 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap, 

with the Emperor Lewis, and he was also thought to have 
gone wrong in some hard points of theology. This is one 
of many things which shows how much m.en's minds were 
now stirred on the subject of religion, as we shall presently 
see. The Popes did not finally go back to Rome till 1376, 
in the time of Gregory the Eleventh; and, when he died 
two years afterwards, there was a double election. Urban 
the Sixih^ an Italian, was the first chosen, and afterwards 
Robert of Ge7teva, who called himself Cleme?zt the Sevejith. 
So the Church was divided. Urban lived at Rome and 
Clement at Avignon, and some nations followed one and 
some the other ; France of course took the side of the 
Avignon Pope, and England therefore took that of the Pope 
at Rome. There were thus two opposition Popes, for, 
when Urban and Clement died, their several parties chose 
others to succeed them ; and this state of things went on 
till men got weary of their disputes, and tried to settle them 
in another way. 

4. The General Councils. — Ever since the time of Con- 
stantine, General Councils, that is meetings of Bishops and 
divines from all parts, had been summoned, first by the Em- 
perors and afterwards by the Popes, whenever there were 
matters to be discussed concerning the whole Church at large. 
Such Councils were always held to have greater authority 
than the Popes. But of course, after the separation of East 
and West, they could not really represent the whole Church, 
but only the Western part of it. So now a series of Councils 
were held to settle the affairs of the Church, especially the dis- 
putes between the Popes. The first was held at Pisa in 1402. 
This Council deposed both and chose a third Pope, Alex- 
ander the Fifth, who was succeeded by John the Twenty- 
third. But as the other two, Benedict the Thirteenth and 
Gregory the Twelfth, would not give in, this only m.ade three 
Popes instead of two. At last in 141 5 another Council was 



XII.] THE GENERAL COUNCILS. 207 



held at Constans, chiefly by the help of King Siegmund, who 
worked very hard to bring about the peace of the Church. 
This Council deposed all the three Popes, and very rightly, 
for John the Twenty-third, whether he were rightly chosen or 
not, deserved to be deposed, for his wickedness reminded men 
of the old times of John the Twelfth. The Council then 
elected Martin the Fifth, who was acknowledged everywhere 
as the true Pope. But the Council did some other things 
which were less to its credit. The religious controversies at 
the time, and the abuses of the Papal dominion, had led every- 
where to much thought on religious m.atters and to the 
putting forth of many new doctrines. In England John 
Wycliffe, a doctor of Oxford, had written against many 
things in the received belief and practice of the times, espe- 
cially against the Begging Fria7's, that is the Franciscans 
and Dominicans, who- professed to live upon alms. He 
made many followers, and his opinions spread, especially 
in Bohemia. Two of the chief Bohemian preachers, John 
Huss and Jerome of Prague, were brought before the 
Council and were burned, to the great shame of King Sieg- 
mund, who had plighted his word for the safety of Huss. 
The followers of Huss in Bohemia now rebelled, and a 
fearful civil war followed. In 143 1 there was another 
Council held at Basel, which professed to depose Pope Etige- 
nius the Fottrth, and v/hich lasted on from 1431 to 1439. 
This Council, had its decrees taken effect, would have greatly 
lessened the powers of the Popes and increased those of the 
Bishops and the national Churches, bringing things in short 
more to the state in which they were in early times. But rhe 
Council of Basel gradually fell into discredit, and it died f ut. 
The Popes never liked these Councils which were held in 
places north of the Alps, like Basel and Constanz, and me an- 
while Pope Eugenius held a Council of his own in Italy, hist 
at Ferrara and then at Flore7ice, where in 1439 anotLe? 



208 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 

nominal reconciliation with the Eastern Church was made. 
This was because the Eastern Empire was just then at its 
last gasp, and was glad to get help from the West on any 
terms. For the rest of this century the Popes must be looked 
on as little more than Italian princes, and we will speak of 
them again as such. 

5. The Revival of Learning in Italy. — During all this 
time we may look on Italy as being in some sort the central 
nation of Europe. It had indeed no kind of political power 
over other nations, for the power of the Emperors was gone, 
and this time, when the Popes were so much away in Gaul, 
was just the time when they were less Italian, and had less 
power, than at any time before or after. And Italy, cut up as 
it was into many principalities and commonwealths, was in 
no state to bear rule over other nations. Still it might be 
called the centre of Europe, as being the country which had 
more to do with the rest of the world than any other one 
country. It was the country to which others looked up as 
being at the head in arts, learning, and commerce, and it was 
the country too where, just as in old Greece, there was the 
greatest political life among the many small states ; though of 
course, as in old Greece also, this was bought at the cost of 
constant wars between the different cities, and of many dis- 
turbances at home. The two nations which had been the 
most civilized in Europe, the Greeks in the East and the 
Saracens in the West, were now falling before the Turks 
and the Spanish Christians. The Italians in some sort 
took their place. Ever since the twelfth century there had 
been a great movement of men's minds in the way of learn- 
ing, and this turned more and more towards the study of the 
ancient Latin writers, and after a while the Greek also. And 
studies of this kind also had an important political effect. 
Thus men in the twelfth century began to study the old 
Roman- Law and this study disposed them much in favour 



XII.] THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 209 



of the Swabian Emperors. So again, somewhat later, the 
study of the old Latin poets, and what they said about the old 
Caesars, led men to welcome Henry the Seventh and the 
Emperors who came after him. The great poet Dante 
Alighieri was strong on the Imperial side, both in his 
poems and in his prose writings, and he complains of King 
Albert for staying away from Italy and not taking heed 
to the garden of the Empire. But, on the other hand, the 
study of the ancient repubhcan writers, and the praises 
which they give to the killers of tyrants, several times stirred 
up men in the fifteenth century to conspiracies against 
the Popes and other princes. Towards the end of the time 
with which we have to do printing was invented ; and though 
it was not invented in Italy but in Germany, by Gutenmtt'g 
at Mainz, yet it was in Italy, where there were more 
learned men and writers than elsewhere, that it was for a 
long while of the most importance. Gunpowder too, an 
invention as important in war as printing was in peace, 
gradually came into use in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
turies. It quite changed the manner of warfare ; the old 
style of armour and the old style of fortification, both of 
which had in Italy been carried to such perfection that men 
could not be wounded and castles could not be taken by 
any arms then known, now became of little use, and a new 
order of things in warfare began. 

6. The Commonwealths of Italy. — Meanwhile the political 
state of Italy greatly changed. The separate cities, which 
had in the twelfth century been independent commonwealths, 
were gradually grouped together into larger states. Some- 
times the lord or tyrant of one city got possession of several 
cities, so as to form a large continuous dominion. In such 
cases a ruler generally tried to give some show of lawful- 
ness to his power by getting the Pope or the Emperor to 
invest him with his dominions as 2i Jief, and to give him the 

P 



axo THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 

title of Duke or Marquess as an hereditary prince. Thus, 
in the course of the thirteenth century, the chief power at 
Milan gradually came into the hands of the family of the 
Visconti. Then, in 1395, Gian Galeazzo Visconti^ who was 
Lord oi Milan and held Pavia and other cities of Lombardy, 
bought a charter from King Wenceslaus making him Duke 
of Milan. The Dukes of Milan, through the wealth and 
industry of the cities over which they ruled, became far 
richer and more powerful than many princes who had 
much wider dominions, but, now that their dominions were 
made hereditary, they were laid open to the usual disputes 
and wars as to the right of succession to the crown. When 
Filippo Maria, the last of the Visconti, died in 1447, the 
Milanese tried to set their ancient commonwealth up again. 
But they were obliged to admit Francesco Sforza, the son- 
in-law of the late Duke, as his successor. He was one of a 
class of men of M^hom there were then many in Italy, mer- 
cenary generals who went about with bands of soldiers, hiring 
themselves out to fight for any prince or commonwealth that 
would pay them, and by whose help most of the princes and 
commonwealths of Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
turies waged their wars. Thus there was a new dynasty at 
Milan, that of the Sforz-a. Meanwhile, as some of the cities 
of Northern TtaJy thus fell under the power of the Dukes 
of Milan, so others came under the power of the com- 
monwealth of Venice. For it was in Italy at this time 
just as it was long before in old Greece ; one city bore rule 
ever another. Venice, as we have seen, had gained the 
first position in the world as a maritime power, holding 
large possessions in the East. But in the fifteenth century 
she was tempted to become a land power also, and she 
obtained a large dominion over the cities in the north- 
east of Italy. The government of Venice had by this time 
grown into a narrow oligarchy. The chief power was 



XII.] THE STATES OF ITALY. 2 II 

in the hands of the noble famihes, quite shutting out the 
people and leaving very little power to the Doge. But, 
though Venice was an oligarchy, yet it was a prudent and 
moderate oligarchy, which never f.uled to supply wise 
statesmen and brave commanders by sea. For the fleets 
of Venice were always manned by her own citizens or suId- 
jects, though by land mercenary troops were commonly used. 
Genoa also remained a republic, and kept up a great deal ot 
her old maritime power. At one time, in 1379, she seemed 
almost on the point of conquering Venice. But at Genoa, 
unlike Venice, there were constant internal revolutions, and 
the city had several times to submit to the Dukes of Milan 
and the Kings of France. The other great maritime com- 
monwealth, Pisa^ lost nearly all her power after a sea-fight 
with the Genoese in 1284, and at last in 1406 Pisa became 
subject to Florence. This last commonwealth, which had 
not been prominent in the twelfth century, gradually became, 
in the course of the thirteenth century, one of the chief states 
of Italy. As Venice was the greatest example in later times 
of an aristocratic commonwealth, so Florence was the greatest 
example of a democracy. In this way the two in some sort 
answer to Sparta and Athens in the old Greek times, and 
when we come to the special History of Italy, it will be well 
to compare the points of likeness and unlikeness between 
these two great democratic commonwealths. At Florence 
the old nobles were quite put down in 1292, but in the course 
of the fifteenth century a kind of new nobility gradually 
arose ; and one family in particular, that of the Medici, 
gradually rose to have the chief power in the state, though 
without disturbing the forms of the commonwealth, or 
taking any particular title to themselves. Such were 
Cosmo de' Medici, called the Father of his Country, and 
his grandson Lorenzo. Their power was of a different kind 
from that of the lords or tyrants, either in old Greece ot 

P 2 



212 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE, [chap. 

in other cities of Italy. Nor was it such a power as that of 
Perikles at Athens, as it passed on from father to son. It 
was more hke the power of Augustus and the other Roman 
Emperors who respected the forms of the commonwealth. 
On the whole, Florence, though the greatest and most famous 
democratic state in later times, was by no means so pure and 
regular a democracy as Athens was. Still there was no part 
of Europe where there was so much life, political, intel- 
lectual, and commercial. Dante, the greatest of all Italian 
poets, was born at Florence in 1265, and died in banishment 
in 1 32 1. Many other of the chief artists and men of letters 
also belonged to Florence ; the commerce of the city was 
famous, and its bankers lent money to Kings in England 
and elsewhere. And in the time of the Medici there was no 
no city in Italy where greater encouragement was given to 
the men who were engaged in reviving the old Greek and 
Roman learning. Yet, though mere learning flourished, 
native genius died out with freedom, and in the later days 
of Florence there were no men like Dante. 

7. Rome and the Popes. — Rome meanwhile, forsaken as the 
city was for so long both by the Emperors and by the Popes, 
quite lost its old place in Italy, and did not begin to win it 
back again till the affairs of the Popes became more settled 
after the Council of Constanz. The Romans never forgot the 
old greatness of their city, and, as men's minds were constantly 
falling back on old times, one Cola di Rienzi in 1347 set up 
again for a short time what he called the Good State, and ruled 
himself by the title of Tribune. So again, after the Popes 
came back to Rome, there were one or two conspiracies to set 
up the old commonwealth ; but from the Council of Constanz 
onwards we may look on the Popes as undoubted temporal 
princes of Rome. They were gradually able to bring under 
their power all that part of Italy, stretcLiing from one sea to 
the other, over which they professed to have rights by the 



XII.] ROME AND THE POPES. 21^ 



grants of various Kings and Emperors. The later Popes of 
the fifteenth century must be looked on as little more 
than Italian princes, and many of them were among the 
very worst of the Italian princes. Some of them, like 
Nicolas the Fifth, did some good in the way of encouraging 
learning; and Pius the Seco7id, who reigned from 1458 to 
1464, and who is famous as a writer by his former name 
of jEneas Silvius, tried, like Gregory the Tenth, to get the 
Christian princes to join in a Crusade for the deliverance 
of the East. But Sixtus the Fifth and Innocent the Eighth 
were among the worst of the Popes, thinking of nothing 
except increasing their temporal power and advancing their 
own families. 

8. The Two Sicilies. — The Two Sicilies meanwhile re- 
mained divided. The Kingdom of Sicily on the mainland, 
often called the Kingdom of Naples, was in extent the greatest 
state in Italy, and some of its Kings, especially Robert, who 
reigned from 130910 1343, played an important part in Italian 
affairs. But it shows how much greater was the life of the 
separate cities, even when not under a free government, 
when we see how this large kingdom lagged behind the rest 
of Italy, and how, even in political power, it was not more 
than on a level with the principalities and commonwealths 
of Northern Italy which were not above half its size. This 
Kingdom of Sicily was much torn in pieces by civil wars 
arising out of disputed successions to the Crown. Two 
bad Queens, Jane the First (1343 to 1382) and Ja?ie the 
Second (141 9 to 1435), caused much confusion by their 
different marriages and adoptions of successors. During 
the greater part of the fifteenth century the crown was 
disputed between a branch of the House of Aragon, who 
for the most part kept possession, and the Dukes of Anjou^ 
a branch of the royal House of France, who ever and anon 
tried to make their own claims good. At last the claims of 



214 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 



the Angevin princes passed to the Kings of France them- 
selves, and then many im.portant events followed. Mean- 
while in the Island of Sicily the other branch of the house 
of Aragon went on reigmng. The first King Frederick^ who 
established the independence of the island, ruled bravely 
and wisely, but after him the island kingdom became of 
no account at all. At last Sicily became united to the King- 
dom of Aragon itself, another step towards the great events 
of the next period. 

9. England, France, and Scotland. — A great part of 
the history of the lands beyond the Alps during this time 
is taken up by the long wars between England and France. 
These had now become thoroughly national wars, and be- 
fore long they grew into attempts at a complete conquest 
of France on the part of England. And the wars between 
England and France are a good deal mixed up with 
the wars of the English Kings with -Scotland, and even 
with Wales. For, when England and France became 
constant national enemies, it was the natural policy ot 
the French Kings to raise up enemies to their rivals 
within their own island. It was the object of Edward the 
First, like that of his namesake Edward the Elder in old 
times, to join all Britain, as far as might be, under one 
dominion. That part of Wales which still kept its own 
Princes was joined on in 1282. Wales was never again 
separated from England ; but once or twice, when there were 
revolts in Wales, those who were discontented with the Eng- 
lish rule tried to get help from France. How Scotland \wai.s 
for a moment united with England, how, after the death 
of Edward the First, it was again separated under its King 
Robert Bruce, how in 1328 Scotland was acknowledged 
by England as an independent kingdom, but how con- 
stant rivalries and wars went on between the two kingdoms 
in one island, must be told moxe fully in our Histories of 



XII.] ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 215 

England and Scotland. The point to be borne in mind now 
is that, from this time, we find a steady alliance between 
France and Scotland against England. This began as early 
as the time of Edward the First. In the long wars of the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we now and then find 
French troops serving in Scotland, while the Scots soon 
learned to take service in France, and in the later wars we 
find them serving against the English in every battle. 
Through this close connexion with France, Scotland came 
to hold a higher place in Europe than she could otherwise 
have had from her size and position. 

10. Wars between England and France. — During the 
reigns of Edward the First and of his son Edward the 
Second, who reigned from 1307 to 1327, the rivalry between 
England and France did not lead to any great war. Philip 
the Fair got possession of the Duchy of Aquitaine in the 
year 1294, but he had soon to give it up again. It was 
in the reign of Edward the Third, from 1327 to 1377, 
that the great war began which the French writers call 
the Hundred Years' War. It was something like the 
Peloponnesian War in Greece, in old times ; for, though 
there was not actual fighting going on for the whole time, 
yet there was no firm or lasting peace between the two 
countries for more than a hundred years. Edward the 
Third laid claim to the Crown of France through his 
mother Isabel, who was a daughter of Philip the Fair. 
But the French held that no right to the Crown could pass 
through a woman. The French King, on the other hand, 
Philip of Valois, was eager to get possession of Aquitaine. 
A loiig war followed, which was famous for the taking of 
Calais and for the great victories of the English at Crecy in 
1346 and at Poitiers in 1356. Edward, as was natur£!.l, was an 
ally of the Emperor Lewis and of the Flemish cities, which 
Vf ere now beginning to rise to great importance, though they 



2i6 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 

never won the same complete independence as those of Italy. 
As France had the feudal superiority over Flanders, the Flem- 
ings were better pleased when King Edward took the title of 
King of France^ so that they might seem to be fighting for 
and not against 4heir overlord. As King Edward was an ally 
of the Emperor Lewis, it came about that King John oj 
Bohemia took the French side, so that he and his son 
Charles^ who had just been chosen King of the Romans, 
were both at Crecy, and King John was killed there. At 
Poitiers another King Jolut, the French King himself, was 
taken prisoner, and, as David King of Scots, the son of 
Robert Bruce, was taken prisoner in 1346, there were two 
captive Kings in England at once. This first part of the war 
with France was ended by the Peace of Bretigny in 1360, by 
which Edward gave up his claim to the Crown of France, but 
he kept his possessions in Aguitaine, together with Calais and 
some other small districts, and that no longer as a vassal of 
the French King, but as an independent sovereign. Edward 
then granted his dominions in the south to his son Edward, 
called the Black Prince, who ruled at Bourdeaux as Prince of 
Agidtaine. Before long the Peace of Bretigny was broken by 
the French King Charles the Fifth, and, before the end of 
the reign of Edward the Third, the English had lost nearly 
all their possessions in Aquitaine except the cities of Bour- 
deaux and Bayonne. The cities commonly stuck to the. 
English rule, under which they were less meddled with, 
while the nobles were m'ostly for an union with France. 
After the peace was broken, King Edward again took up his 
title of King of France, which was borne by all the Kings 
of England down to the year 1800. There now catme a 
time which was neither war nor peace. Many truces were 
made, and now and then there was some little fighting, 
but it was not until the reign of Henry the Fifth in Eng- 
land that the war began again on a great scale. He took 



Xii.] THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 217 

advantage of the dissensions by which France was torn 
in pieces during the reign of the weak, or rather mad, King 
Cha7'les the Sixth. He won the Battle of Agincourt in 141 5, 
took Rouen in 1419, and in 1420 concluded the Treaty of 
T7^oyes, by which Henry was to succeed to the Crown of 
France on the death of Charles, and the Crowns of England 
and France were to be ever after united. Both Charles and 
Henry died in 1422, but a large part of France refused to 
acknowledge the treaty, so, after their deaths, the war went on 
between Charles the Seventh, who reigned at Bourges, and 
John Duke of Bedford, who was Regent of France for his 
nephew Henry the Sixth, who was crowned King at Paris in 
143 1. Now conies the great story of the waking up of France 
under the famous Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc. She came 
from the borders of Lorraine, but she was called the Maid of 
Orleans because she relieved that city when it was besieged by 
the English. By her means Charles the Seventh was crowned 
at Rheims in 1429, thus getting the start of his English rival. 
The war now went on for a long time, and it was for the most 
part badly managed on the English side after the death of 
the Duke of Bedford. The English were gradually driven 
out, not only of France but of Aquitaine also, till at last, in 
1453, Bourdeaux and Bayonne were finally taken by the 
French, and the English kept nothing on the continent 
except the territory of Calais. The Hundred Years' War 
was now over. The Kings of England still kept on their 
claim to the Crown of France, and they now and then pro- 
fessed to make attempts to recover it. But, though there were 
for a long time many wars between England and France and 
long enmity between the two nations, the notion of conquer- 
ing France was never again seriously taken up after the 
time of Henry the Sixth. 

II. The Growth of France. — The long wars of the Eng- 
lish were a great check to the growth of the ]cingdom of 



2X8 TEE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 

France, yet it was growing all this time, both by uniting the 
territories of the great vassals to the Crown and by an- 
nexations at the expense of its neighbours. These were ot 
course mainly made at the expense of the Empire ; but, 
as Aquitaine had become an independent state by the Treaty 
of Bretigny, its conquest also may be looked on rather as a 
foreign conquest than as the union of a great fief to the 
Crown. And during this time the French Kings began the 
process which has gone on ever since, that of joining the 
states which made up the Kingdom of Bmgundy one by one 
to the Kingdom of France. Even before this they had taken 
the little County of Venaissin, but that had been given up 
to the Popes. But now they began in earnest. In 13 14, 
Philip the Fair took advantage of the disputes between 
the citizens of the Imperial city of Lyons and their Arch- 
bishops to annex the city to his own dominions. In 1349, 
in the thick of the English wars, the last of the princes 
of Vienne on the Rhone, who from their arms bore the title 
of Dauphin or Dolphin, sold his dominions to Charles the 
eldest son of King John of France, and from this time it 
became the rule that the eldest son of the King of France bore 
the title of Dauphin. The County of Provence also, though 
not part of the Kingdom of France, was, from the time ot 
Charles of Anjou onwards, held by French princes. And so 
it came about that, somewhat after our present time, in 148 1, 
Lewis the Eleventh, the son of Charles the Seventh, was able 
to add Provence also to France. The French Kings also 
more than once got hold of the County of Burgundy oxFranche 
Conit'e, of which Dole is the capital. But this they were not 
able permanently to keep till long afterwards. Still, before 
the end of the fifteenth century, the acquisition of Provence, 
Lyons, and the Dauphiny of Viemie had given the French 
Kings a good half of the Burgundian kingdom. The only 
princes of any great power left in that part of the world 



XII.] GROWTH OF FRANCE. 219 

were the Coimts, afterwards Dtikes, of Savoy, who ruled on 
both sides of the Lake of Geneva, and who had also pos- 
sessions in the north-west corner of Italy. In other parts ot 
the Empire also, even where the French Kings did not make 
conquests, they were winning influence. To the north of 
their own dominions they often had wars with the stout 
people of the Flemish cities, over whom they sometimes v/on 
victories, by whom they were sometimes defeated. The battle 
of Courtray in the time of Philip the Fair is famous as the 
first great victory north of the Alps won by townsmen over 
nobles. On the whole, notwithstanding the long wars with 
England, the kingdom of France had greatly grown in power 
and in extent in the times between the middle of the thir- 
teenth century and the middle of the fifteenth. 

12. Beginning of the Swiss League. — While the three 
kingdoms which belonged to the Empire were thus getting 
weaker and more divided, and while the kingdom of France 
to the west of them was growing stronger and stronger, two 
new powers gradually arose in what we may call the border- 
land of all these kingdoms. One of these lasted but a short 
time, but the other has lived on to our own day. These are 
the Duchy of Burgundy and the League of the Swiss Cantons. 
This last began among three small mountain districts on 
the borders of Germany, Burgundy, and Italy, called Uri, 
Schwyz, and Unterwalden. They were German-speaking 
members of the Empire, and there was nothing to distinguish 
them from other German-speaking members of the Empire, 
except they had kept far more than usual of the freedom of 
the old times. Like many other districts and cities of the 
Empire, they joined together in a league for mutual de- 
fence. This they had doubtless done from earlier times, 
but the first written document of their union belongs to 
the year 1291. The Counts of Habsburg, who had now 
become Dukes of Austria^ and who had estates within the 



220 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 

three lands themselves, were now very dangerous neighbours, 
and they had to .keep close together in order to guard their 
freedom. This they made safe by the battle of Moj'-ga?^len, 
won over Duke Leopold of Austria in 13 15. Presently 
sev^eral of the neighbouring cities, Luzern, Zurich, and Bern, 
joined their alliance, as also did the smaller towns of Zug 
and Glartisj so that in the course of the fourteenth century 
they formed a league of eight states. Its name was the Old 
League ^f High Gemtany, and its members were called the 
Eidgenossen or Coitfederates j but the name of the Canton of 
Schwyz gradually spread over the whole League, and they 
came to be commonly called Swiss and their country Switzer- 
land. But it is only in quite late times that those names 
have come into formal use. Such a League was of course 
much dreaded by the neighbouring nobles, but it was for a 
long time favoured by the Emperors. The three lands had 
been specially loyal to the Swabian Emperors, and they were 
no less favoured by Henry the Seventh and Lewis of Bavaria. 
Charles the Fourth was their enemy, but they were again 
favoured by his son Siegmund. But the Dukes of Austria were 
their constant enemies, and therefore, when the Empire passed 
into the Austrian House, the Confederates had to be on their 
guard against the power which had hitherto been friendly. 
But they did not throw off their allegiance to the Empire, 
and, during all the time of which we speak, the Confede- 
rates remained a purely German body, although some parts 
of their territory, including Bern the most powerful member 
of the League, lay within the bounds of the Kingdom of 
Burgundy. The Confederates had to wage several wars for 
the defence of their fieedom, as when in 1386 they won the 
battle of Sempach over another Duke Leopold of Austria and a 
great confederacy of the nobles, and when in 1444 they were at- 
tacked by the Dauphin Lewis, afterwards Lewis the Eleventh. 
They had also some disputes and even civil wars among 



XII.] BEGINNING OF THE SWISS LEAGUE. 221 



themselves ; but on the whole the League steadily advanced 
and made many alliances with its neighbours. And these 
commonwealths also, like those of Old Greece and of Italy, 
conquered, or sometimes bought, various towns and districts, 
which they held as their subjects. Thus, by the middle of 
the fifteenth century, the Confederates had formed quite a 
new power in Europe, and one which was getting more 
and more independent of the Empire. But they in no 
sort formed a nation, because all the members of the League 
were still purely German. They were simply one of many 
German Leagues, which circumstances allowed to become 
more independent than the others, and, as it turned out, to 
survive them. We must now speak of the other power which 
was growing up meanwhile in the border-lands, and with 
which the Confederates presently had a great deal to do. 

13. The Dukes of Burgundy.— It must be always borne 
in mind that the name Bnrgimdy has several meanings. 
Thus, besides the Kingdom of Burgtmdy, which, in the times 
of which we are now speaking, quite fell to pieces and was 
almost forgotten, there was the Duchy of Burgimdy, which 
was a fief of the Crown of France, and the County of Bur- 
gundy, which v/as part of the Kingdom, and therefore a fief 
of the Empire. A power now began to arise, which took in 
more than one of these Burgundies, and which seemed not 
unlikely to bring back the old times when there was a Middle 
Kingdom of Btirgundy or of Lotharingia lying between 
Germany, Italy, and France. This came about in this way. 
The French Duchy of Burgundy fell in to the Crown in 
1 361, and Philip the son of King John of France became 
the first of a new line of Dukes, that of Valois. He 
married Margaret the heiress ©f Flanders, and thus united 
two of the greatest fiefs of the Crown of France. Of these 
Flanders, where the great cities were always quarrelling with 
the Counts, was almost an independent state. After Phihp 



222 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 

there reigned three Dukes of his family, John the Fearless 
from 1404 to 1 41 9, Philip the Good frcm 141 9 to 1467, and 
Charles the Bold from 14^7 to 1477. All these Dukes, as 
French princes, played a very important part in the affairs 
of France. They were also always winning, in all kinds 
of ways, by marriage, by purchase, or by conquest, large 
territories within the Empire, including the greater part ol 
the Netherlaiids or Low Countries, taking in nearly all both 
of the present Kingdom of the Netherlattds and the present 
Kingdom of Belgium^ besides much which has now gone 
to France. They thus were vassals at once of the Em- 
peror and of the King of France, and they were really more 
pov/erful than either of their lords, for their position as a 
border power gave them great advantages, and their pos- 
session of the great cities of the Low Countries, turbulent 
as their citizens often were, made them the richest princes in 
Europe. Duke John the Fearless was murdered by the 
Dauphin Charles, afterwards Charles the Seventh, and this 
threw his son Duke Philip into the arms of the English. 
Philip supported the English in France for a long time, 
and, after he forsook their side at the Treaty of Arras 
in 1435, the English power in France fell away very fast. 
Duke Philip reigned very prudently, and increased the power 
of his Duchy in every way. But under his son, Charles the 
Bold, his great power fell to pieces. There was a constant 
rivalry between him and Lewis the Eleventh. He also 
kept the world in general in alarm by endlessly planning 
one scheme after another, and by annexing such of the 
territories of his neighbours as he could get hold of. One 
great object of his was to annex the Duchy of Lorraine, that 
is the southern part of the old Lotharingia, the capital of 
which is Nancy. This would have joined his dominions 
in the Netherlands with the Duchy and County of Bur- 
gundy. But he also dreaaned of getting Provence^ and of 



Xil.] THE DUCHY OF BURGUNDY. 223 



making himself King of all the lands which had ever formed 
part of any of the old Burgundian and Lotharingian King- 
doms. In this way he got into disputes with the cities on 
the Rhine, with Duke Siegmund of Austria, and lastly with 
the Confederates, the King of France of course taking care 
to stir up all his enemies against him. A war now followed 
between Duke Charles and the Confederates, which was 
carried on in the dominions of the Duke of Savoy north of 
the Lake of Geneva. Charles was overthrown in two great 
battles at Granson and Murten or Morat in 1476. At last 
he was defeated and killed in 1477 in a third battle at Nancy, 
whither the Confederates had gone to help Rene Duke of 
Lorraine to win back his Duchy from Charles. This war had 
two great results. The great power of the Dukes of Burgundy 
was broken up. Charles' daughter Mary kept his dominions 
in the Low Countries and (after a while) the County of Btir- 
gundy. But the Duchy of Burgundy was joined to the Crown 
of France, and the scheme of a great power lying between 
Germany and France came to an end. On the other hand, 
the great victories of the Confederates raised their reputation 
to the highest pitch. They now began to take a part in 
general European affairs, and to count as a distinct power. 
They also now began to win dominions in the Romance- 
speaking lands to the west and south of them. But their suc- 
cesses did much to corrupt them ; the Swiss, as they now 
began to be called, were such good soldiers that all the 
princes of Europe, especially the Kings of France, were glad 
to have them in their armies, and thus began the practice of 
serving for hire, which was the disgrace of the Swiss League 
till quite lately, 

14. The Eastern Empire. Rise of the Ottomans. — While 
the Western Empire was quite changing its character, sinking 
into a German Kingdom or rather into a Confederation of 
German States, the Eastern E7npire, which had now become 



224 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 

practically Greek, came to an end altogether. After the 
Greeks had won back Constantinople from the Latins in 
1260, their Empire, under the last dynasty of the Palaio- 
logoi^ was but a shadow of the old Empire. Yet, as had 
so often happened before, there was for a while a time of 
revival, and the Emperors of Constantinople, E7nperors of 
the Romans as they still called themselves, were able to join 
on to their dominions many of the little states, both Greek 
and Frank, which had sprung up at the time of the Latin 
Conquest. During these last days of the Eastern Empire 
there was more intercourse than before between the Greeks 
and the Western nations, especially the Venetians and 
Genoese, And, whenever the Greeks were in any trouble, 
their Emperors always made a show of putting an end to 
the division between the Eastern and Western Churches. 
But schemes of this sort never really took root, as the Greeks 
were fully determined never to admit the authority of the 
Pope. These applications for Western help were commonly 
made when the Eastern Emperors were hard pressed by an 
enemy which seemed likely to swallow up, not only the 
Eastern Empire but all Christendom. These were the Otto- 
ma7i Ttirks^ so called from their early leader Othinan. They 
arose in the middle of the thirteenth century, being first 
heard of about 1240. This branch of the Turks produced a 
succession of greater rulers than any other Eastern dynasty, 
and their power has lasted till our own time. They gradually 
swaJ)owed up the provinces of the Empire in Asia, and most 
of the other powers, Christian and Mahometan, in those 
parts, and Turkish pirates began to ravage the coasts of 
Europe. About 1343 they got a firmer footing in Europe 
during some of the dissensions within the Empire, and they 
were never again driven out. In 1361 their Sultan Morad 
or Amurath took Had^'ianople, which became the Otto- 
man capital. What remained of the Eastern Empire was 



XII.] THE OTTOMAN TURKS. 225 

ROW altogether hemmed in ; all was lost, except Constanti- 
nople itself and a small territory round it, and some outlying 
possessions, chiefly in Peloponnesos. Meanwhile the Turks 
were spreading themselves to the north, and were over- 
coming the Slavonic lands which had learned their Chris- 
tianity from the Eastern Empire, Servia, Bulgaria, and 
other states in those parts. This brought them into contact 
wath Hungary, and thus led to wars of which we shall speak 
presently. The successes of the Turks were largely owing 
to their taking a tribute of children from their Christian sub- 
jects, the strongest and bravest of whom were brought up 
as soldiers, and formed a well-disciplined body of infantry 
which overcame all enemies. These were called Janissa^'ies 
or New Soldiers. During the reign of Bajazet, surnamed 
the Thunde7'-boli, who reigned from 1389 to 1402, things 
seemed as if the Eastern Empire and all the Christian states 
of South-eastern Europe were about to be destroyed at once. 
But they gained a respite in a strange way from the appear- 
ance of a new Mahometan power in Asia. 

15. Rise of Timour. — The great i^/^^2>;/^?;«//r<? which had 
been founded by Jerighiz had long ago fallen to pieces ; but 
dynasties rising out of it reigned for a long time in Persia, 
and for a still longer time held Russia in bondage. In the 
latter half of the fourteenth century a prince called Timour 
arose in Central Asia, whose descendants are commonly 
spoken of as the Moguls, but who see^ns in truth to have 
been Turkish rather than Mongolian. He was a Mahometan 
of the Shiah sect, those who hold the divine right of AH 
the son-in-law of Mahomet, and v/ho look, not only on all 
the Ommiad and Abbasside Caliphs, but on the three first 
Caliphs, Aboic Bekr, Omar, and Othman, as usurpers. They 
had always existed as a religious sect, but most of the great 
Mahometan nations were Sonnites or orthodox Mahometans, 
who look on all the first four Caliphs as lawful successors of 

Q 



226 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 

Mahomet. Timour therefore made religious zeal an excuse 
for attacking the whole world, whether Christians, heathens, 
or such Mahometans as he looked on as heretics. At last he 
came into Western Asia to attack the Ottoman Sultan 
Bajazet, whom in his letters he addressed as the CcEsar 
oj Rome. Bajazet was utterly defeated and taken prisoner 
in the battle of Angora in 1402, and Timour never crossed 
into Europe. He died in 1405, and his great dominion, like 
other great dominions of the kind, broke in pieces. 

16. The Fall of Constantinople. — The little that was left 
of the Eastern Empire got a breathing space through the 
overthrow of Bajazet by Timour. A civil war arose among 
his sons, and the Ottoman monarchy was not again united 
till 1421 under Sultan Amurath the Second. He besieged 
Constantinople in 1422, but the Empire still dragged on a 
feeble existence till the accession of his son Mahomet the 
Second^ called the Conqueror^ in 145 1. All the Ottoman 
Sultans hitherto had been great warriors, and, according to 
the Eastern standard, wise rulers. Mahomet was perhaps the 
greatest of them all. He presently besieged Constantinople: 
the last Emperor of the East, Constajitine Falaiologos, 
made another of those reconciliations with the Western 
Church of which we have already heard, but he gained no 
real help from the West except a few volunteers who came 
chiefly from Venice and Genoa. The great siege of Con- 
stantinople began, one of the first great sieges in which 
cannon^ which had been gradually coming into use in war 
for about a hundred years, played a great part. The Emperor 
did all that man could do in such a strait, but at last, on 
May the 29th, 1453, Constantinople was taken by storm. 
Constantine died sword in hand, and the Roman Empire of 
the East came to an end. Constantinople now became the 
capital of the Ottoman Empire^ and Justinia.n's great church 
of Saint Sophia became a Mahometan mosque. In a few 



XII.] FALL OF CONSTANTLNOPLE. 227 

years Mahomet conquered Peloponnesos and the greater 
part of Greece, and in 1461 he conquered the Greek Empire 
of Trebizond, which thus outlived that of Constantinople. 
He had thus got possession of nearly the whole mainland 
which had belonged to the Eastern Empire at any time since 
the first Saracen conquest. But the Venetians still kept 
several points of the mainland, besides Crete and Co7'Ju 
and some smaller islands. Some of the other islands, were 
still kept by Latin princes, and Rhodes was held by the 
Knights of Saint John. Cyprus too remained a Latin king- 
dom, though before long the Venetians gained that also. 
Mahomet went on to plan the invasion of Western Europe, 
and the Turks actually took Otranto in Southern Italy; but 
the West was delivered by the death of Mahomet in 148 1, 
for his successor Bajazet the Second was not a conqueror 
like his father. 

17. The Spanish Kingdoms. — The two ends of Europe, in 
the Scandinavian and the Spanish peninsulas, played a less 
important part in general history during this time than they 
did either before or after. Their history is chiefly confined 
to dealings within their own bounds. In Spain the Saracens 
or Moors were now shut up in the one kingdom of Granada j 
and, though there were often wars between them and their 
neighbours of Castile, yet the Spanish history of this time is 
much more taken up with wars and disputes among the 
several Christian kingdoms. The history of Castile is con^ 
nected with that of England, because the Black Prince, 
Edward, Pri?ice of Wales and Aquitaine, was persuaded in 
1366 to lead an army into Spain to restore King Pedro or 
Peter, surnamed the Cruel, who had been driven out by his 
brother Hen7y of Trastamara. In this war Edward won his 
third great battle of Najara or Navarete, and restored Peter, 
who was however before long killed ty H'enry. Aragon 
again was closely connected with the Two Sicilies. The 

Q2 



228 THE DECLINE OF T.HE EMPIRE. [chap 

island kingdom was united to Aragon in 1409, and Alfonso the 
Fifths who was King from 14 16 to 1458, was, during part of 
that time, in possession of Naples. But, as he was succeeded 
in Naples by his natural son Ferdinand and in Aragon by his 
brother John, the two kingdoms were again separated for a 
while, and Naples was all the while disputed by the Angevin 
princes. At one time, in 1467, the war was carried into 
Spain by John, Duke of Calabria, son of Re7te, Cotmt of Pro- 
vence and Duke of Anjou, who called himself King of Sicily. 
This John came to help the Catalans who were in revolt 
against John of Aragon. John had also wars with Leivis of 
France for the possession of the border County of Rotissillon, 
which changed hands several times between the two Crowns. 
Portttgal meanwhile was doing great things. Under John 
the Great, who reigned from 1385 to 1433, the Portuguese 
began to take revenge for the long possession of Spain by the 
Saracens of Africa by conquests in Africa itself. And at the 
same time, under the Infant or prince Don Henry, they began 
a course of navigation and discovery along the western coast 
of Africa and among the islands of the Atlantic, which 
went on during the whole of the fifteenth century. At last 
the great discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in i486 opened 
for Portugal a yet wider dominion in India and other parts 
of the East. In this work of exploring, conquering, and 
colonizing distant parts of the world, other nations soon fol- 
lowed, but it was the Portuguese who first showed the way. 
Meanwhile a great change took place in the Spanish penin- 
sula, which led to great changes in Europe generally. This 
came about through the marriage in 1471 of Isabella Queeii 
of Castile with Ferdinand the Infant of Aragon, who soon 
"after succeeded to the Aragonese crown, The Crowns of" 
Aragon and Castile were ever afterwards, except for a 
very short time, held together. In 148 1 the Catholic Kii-igs, 
as Ferdinand and Isabella were called, began a war with 



XII. J SPAIN AND SCANDINAVIA. 229 

Granada^ whose King had invaded the Castilian territory 
In 1492 they took Granada itself and united the kingdom 
to Castile. The Mahometan dominion in Spain, which had 
lasted through so many ages, was now at an end, and the 
recovery of Granada might almost seem to make up in 
Christendom for the loss of Constantinople at the other end 
of Europe. Spain, as the united dominions of Ferdinand 
and Isabella were commonly called, soon became the greatest 
power in Europe. 

18. Northern Europe. — In the Scandinavian peninsulas, 
the power of Denmark gradually sank in the course of the 
thirteenth century. Towards the end of the fourteenth, in 
1397, the three kingdoms were united by the famous 
Union of Calmar, under Margaret Queen of Norway and 
daughter of Waldemar the Third King of Denmark. This 
union, with some interruptions, went on through the fifteenth 
century. In 1448, under Christian the First, the House of 
Oldenburg began to reign, which has gone on in Denmiark 
till our own time, and which held Norway also within the 
present century. During all this time the Northern kingdoms 
had many wars with the League of the Hanse Towns, and 
the shifting relations began between the Kings of Denmark 
and the Duchies of Sleswick and Holstein which have gone 
on till our own days. Sleswick, the land north of the Eyder, 
was the southern part of Denmark, which had become a 
separate Duchy, but which was not a fief of the Empire. Its 
people were partly Danish and partly Low-Dutch. Holstein 
on the other hand, that part of Saxony which lay between 
the Elbe and the Eyder, always was a fief of the Empire, 
and its people were wholly Low-Dutch. 

19. Russia and Poland. — Great changes took place in 
the lands to the east of the Baltic during this period. The 
Lithuanians, the last Aryan people in Europe to accept 
Christianity, were converted towards the end of the four- 



230 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE. [chap. 

teenth century. Their Duke Jagellon married Hedwig 
Queen of Poland in 1386, and was baptized and brought 
about the conversion of his people. He was the founder 
of the dynasty of Kings of Poland of the house of Jagellon. 
The union of Poland and Lithuania under one sovereign 
formed one of the greatest states in Europe. The dominions 
of the Jagellons stretched far to the east and south, taking 
in a large part of Russia and reaching to the new conquests 
of the Ottoman Turks. And in 1466 Casimir the Fourth 
finally got the better of the Teutonic Knights, annexing 
the western part of Prussia to Poland, and so cutting Prussia 
off from Germany. Russia meanwhile, while cut short by 
the Poles and Lithuanians to the west, was held in bondage 
by the Moguls to the east. But, after Moscow became the 
capital in 1328, Russia began to recover itself somewhat, and 
at last, in 1477, Ivan Vasilovitz completely freed the country 
from the Mogul supremacy. Still Russia was altogether 
hemmed in, and it had no means of taking any part in 
European affairs for some time to come. 

20. Hungary and the Turks. — Meanwhile Hungary shifted 
about from one dynasty to another. Towards the end of the 
thirteenth century the Hungarian crown passed by marriage 
into a branch of the Angevin house of Sicily. The greatest 
King of this line was Lewis, who reigned from 1 342 to 1 382, and 
who was also King of Poland. He was the father of Hedwig 
who married Jagellon. Her sister Mary married Siegmund, 
who was afterwards Emperor, and who also became King ot 
Hungary. In his time the Turks became dangerous to Hun- 
gary, and both Hungary and Poland soon became special bul- 
warks of Christendom by land, as the commonwealth of Venice 
was by sea. In 1396 King Siegmund and a large body of 
Western allies were overthrown by Sultan Bajazet at Niko- 
polis. In the next century a famous captain, John Huniades, 
Waiwode or prince of Transsilvajtiat greatly distinguished 



XII.] POLAND AND HUNGARY. 231 

himself against the Turks; but in 1444 Wladislaus the son of 
Jagellon, who was King both of Hungary and Poland, after 
driving back Sultan Amurath for a while, was defeated and 
slain by him at Varna. After this John Huniades was regent, 
and in 1456 he drove back Sultan Mahomet from Belgrade. 
His son Matthias Corvinus was King from 1458 to 1490. 
He did much to civilize his kingdom, and valiantly kept oft 
the Turks, while on the other side he won great victories over 
the House of Austria, who were striving to get the kingdom 
of Hungary in their own hands. 

21. Language, Science, and Art. — The progress of learn- 
ing has been already spoken of with regard to Italy, as it was 
there that it had most effect on the political history of the 
country. But men's minds were at work in other parts of the 
world also. Men were eager after knowledge in many ways. 
Many of the Universities in different countries were now 
of great importance, and in England Colleges began to be 
founded in them. History was in most countries still 
written in Latin. In the thirteenth century we find some 
good writers of history in England, especially Matthew 
Paris, who spoke out boldly against both the Pope and the 
King. But in England the writing of history went down 
a good deal in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
There was, on the other hand, a series of historical writers 
in French from the thirteenth century onwards, and in the 
fourteenth and fifteenth we learn much about the different 
stages of the Hxmdred Years' War from the French-speaking 
writers Froissart and Monstrelet. In England in the four- 
teenth century English had again quite driven French out ot 
use, except for legal and formal purposes. And we have now 
such poets as Geoffrey Chaucer, whose works did much to- 
wards fixing the standard of English language. There were 
many divines and thinkers in various ways, some of whom, 
as we have already seen, began, especially in England audi in 



232 THE DECLINE OF THE EMPUiE, [CHAP. 

Bohemia^ to teach doctrines different from those which were 
commonly received in the Church. And the general stirring 
of men's minds led some into speculations about the natural 
equality of mankind which led to revolts of the peasants both 
in France and England in the course of the fourteenth 
century. The people called Lolla7'ds in England, the 
followers of Wickliffe, often mixed up the religious and 
the social movement together. But in England villain- 
age was on the whole dying out, while in many other 
countries it was getting harder and harder. In war, up to 
the invention of gunpowder, the knights and gentlemen who 
fought on horseback still despised all other troops, though 
the Scots, the Swiss, the Flemings at Courtray, and the 
English archers at Crecy, all showed what a good infantry 
could do. These centuries also, the thirteenth, fourteenth, 
and fifteenth, were the ages when architecture reached its 
height in Europe, and when the finest churches and castles 
were built. But it was only towards the end of this period, 
as times grew quieter and law grew stronger, that we find 
many great houses strictly so called, except within the walls 
of the cities. 

22. Summary. — During this time then the Empii-e of the 
West dwindled into insignificance, and the Empire of the 
East was destroyed altogether. A great Mahometan power 
was settled in the East of Europe, while the last Mahometan 
kingdom was overthrown in the West. Spain became a 
great power. In Italy learning revived, but the freedom of 
the cities was in most cases destroyed, and the corruptions of 
the Popedom grew greater and greater. Eiigland and France 
v/aged a long war, in which France was nearly conquered, but 
she gained in the end, and won a large increase of territory 
both from England and from other powers. The Swiss 
League and the Duchy of Btirgundy became important powers, 
but the advance of the latter was cut short. The three 



XII.] SUMMARY. 233 

Scandinavian kingdoms were united, though not very firmly. 
Pr /(«//(/ became a great power, and Russia laid the founda- 
ticn of her greatness by throwing off the yoke of the Moguls. 
The defence of Christendom against the Turks, though end- 
Icssly talked about by Popes and Emperors, really fell in 
the main on Poland^ Hungary, and Venice, 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. 

Characteristics of modern Europe ; formation of the existing powers 
and nations (i) — progress of arts and inventions ; falling back of 
political freedom (l) — increase of the royal power ; introduction of 
standing armies (i) — all Western Europe now Christian (2) — chief 
causes of the Reformation of religion ; practical abuses ; the power 
of the Popes : disputes on points of theology (2) — different for 771s 
taken by the Reformatioii in different countries ; the Refori7iation, 
as a 7-tile, accepted by the Teutonic nations and refused by the Ro- 
mance (3) — no real toleration 07z either side (3) — names given to 
the different parties {^—gi-owth of the power of Spain ; acquisi- 
tiotz of various kingdoi?is by conquest and 7na7'riage (4) — succession 
of Charles the First of Spain ; his election as the Einperor Charles 
the Fifth ; the Austrian Kings itz Spai^i (4) — reign of Philip the 
Second ; annexation of Portugal (5) — reigns of Philip the Third 
atid Fourth ; wars with Fraitce and loss of territoiy ; persecution 
and exptdsion of the Moriscos (5) — rivahy of F'ra7ice and Spain 
in Italy (6) — conquest of Naples by Charles the Eighth (6) — con- 
qtiest of Mila7i by Lewis the Twelfth, aitd of Naples by Ferdi- 
nand (7) — League of Ca7nbray against Venice ; the Holy Leagujc ; 
restoratiojt of the Medici at Floi'-ence (7) — rivahy of Charles ana 
Francis; battle of Marignano ; captivity of Fi^ancis at Pavia (8) 
— sack of Ro7ne ; peace betweeit Charles and Fj-atzcis ; coronatio7t 
of Charles (8) — do77iinion of Charles ih7'o-ughout Italy ; subjugatio7t 
of Florence (9) — wars of Venice zvith the Turks ; loss- of Cyprus ; 
battle of Lepanto (9) — the Popes ; their purely worldly policy 
at the beginni7tg of the period (10) — i7nprove77ient U7tder the later 
Popes ; Council of Trent ; foundation of the Jesuits (10) — i'eig7i oj 



CHAP. XIII.] THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN-. 235 

Maximilian {ll)— the Emperors afier Charles fhc Fifth ; the Em- 
pire becomes purely German {il)~begm?tin'g of the Reformation in 
Germany ; preaching of Luther {\2)— religious wars and persecu- 
tions ; invasion of the Turks {i2)~growth of France ; annexation. 
ofBritanny [iz)~reign of Francis the First ; Henry of England 
takes Boulogne {11;)— reign of Henry the Second; seizure of the 
Three Bishopricks ; Peace of Cdteau-Cambresis {13)— the Reforma- 
Hon in France; teaching of Calvin {i^)— persecutions and civil 
wars in France ; reign of Henry the Fourth {i^)--revolt of the 
Netherlands against Spain; Williavi the Silent [i^)— formation 
of the Republic of the United Provinces {16)- growth of the Szaiss 

Confederation; the Reformation under Zwi7tgli and Farel [I'j) 

conqtiests ofBernfrojn Savoy ; Savoy loses in Burgundy and gains 
in Italy [i'j)— civil wars in England; reign of Henry the Eighth 
{l'])~the Reformation in England; Henry throws off the Papal 
power; religious changes under Edivard {i^)~restoraiion of the 
Pope's power under Mary ; final settlement under Elizabeth (18)— 
relations between England and Scotland; reign of Mary in Scot- 
land {ig)—war between Elizabeth and Philip {l^)~union of Eng- 
land and Scotland under yatftes ; civil wars of England (19)— 
final separation of Denmark and Sweden under Gustavus Vasa 
{20)— the Reformation in Denmark and Sweden ; advance oj 
Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus (20) —greatness of Poland; 
humiliation of the Teutonic Order ; foundation of the Dway of 
Prussia; its union with Brandenburg {21)— disputes about 
Livonia {21)— growth of Russia ; accession of the house of Ro- 
manoff ; the Polish crown becomes purely elective {21)— beginning 
of the modern kingdoin of Persia {22)— reigns of Selim the Inflexi- 
ble and Sulei7nan the Lazvgiver ; Turkish conquests in Hungary 
{22)~conquest of Cyprus and battle of Lepanto {22)— disputes in 
Bohemia; the Elector Palatine chosen King; beginning of the 
Thirty Years' War (23)— career of Gustavus Adolphus {23)— in- 
terference and advance of France {23)— peace of Westphalia; 
degradation of the Empire.; acquisitions of Sweden and France 
{2^)— continued war between France and Spain ; Peace of the 
Pyrenees {2 d,)— European colonies and settlements; different 
kinds of settlements {2$)— Portuguese settlements in Africa and 
India {2^)— discovery of America {26)— Spanish settlements in 



236 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN, [chap. 



America (27) — French, English, and Dutch settlements in 
America (28) — t>rogress 0/ learning, art, and science ; use of the 
national languages (29) — Summary (30). 



I. Characteristics of Modern Europe. — We are now 
gradually passing into a new state of things. Nearly all the 
nations and powers of Europe which now remain have been 
already formed ; the independent states are fewer and larger 
than before, and things are beginning to be in many ways 
more like what they are now than they have been hitherto. 
The great advance of learning and science in the fifteenth 
century altogether changed the face of the world, and three 
great inventions, printing, gunpowder, and the mariner's 
compass, were now fully in use and gave a wholly new 
character to all matters both of war and peace. The general 
stirring of men's minds, and the spirit of thought and enter- 
prise which began to be abroad, took various forms. It led 
to the great changes of religion which are spoken of as the 
Refo7'matio7i, and it led to the discovery of new lands beyond 
the sea, and to the establishmeDt of colonies by the chief 
European nations in distant parts of the world. In all 
matters of intellectual progress, and in all the arts of ordinary 
life, the time to which we have now come is a time of won- 
derful advance. But, for a long time after the beginning of 
what we may call modern history, political freedom did not 
go forward, but rather fell back. It was a time of much 
deeper and more far-seeing policy than earlier times, and it 
was a time when governments grew stronger, when laws could 
be more regularly carried out, and when much of the turbu- 
lence and disorder of earlier times came to an end. But it 
was also a time when, in most parts of Europe, Kings con- 
trived to get all power into their own hands ; it was a time of 
wars which Kings waged for their own purposes, and in which 
the nations which they governed had very little interest. To 



XIII.] CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN EUROPE, 237 

wage these wars they had to keep standing- armies, that is, 
armies of soldiers who are constantly under arms and who con- 
stantly receive pay. A standing army need not be an army of 
mere mercenaries, like those which served in Italy for any 
prince or commonwealth that would hire them. Still it is 
something very different from the state of things when a lord 
calls on his vassals, or when a commonwealth calls on its 
citizens, to fight when they are wanted to fight and then to go 
home again. A standing army makes the government which 
employs it far stronger ; and it was by means of these standing 
armies that the Kings in most parts of Europe were able to 
overthrow those free institutions of earlier times which many 
countries have only quite lately won back again. But the 
main outward difference between these times and the times 
that went before them is that the old ideas of the Church 
and the Empire now passed away for ever. The Eastern 
Empire was gone ; the Western Empire survived in name only. 
The Emperors were often very powerful princes, but it was not 
by reason of their being Emperors that they are so. We 
have now to deal very largely, not so much with nations, or 
even with particular states, as with collections of states and 
nations in the hands of particular families. And we now 
come to that great revolution in religion by which the 
Churches of Western Europe have ever since been still 
more widely divided among themselves than in former times 
the whole Western Church was from the Eastern. The 
Eastern Church meanwhile remained for a long time as it 
were hidden, most of the nations which belonged to it being 
in bondage to the Turks. It is only in later times that the 
Eastern Church has again become pohtically important as 
being the religion of the great Empire of Russia. 

2. Causes of the Reformation. — At the beginning of the 
sixteenth century we may say that the whole of Western 
Europe was in communion with the Western Church. 



238 THE GREA TNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

And, though all men did not think alike as to the exact 
authority of the Pope or Bishop of -Rome, yet all looked 
on him as being at least the head Bishop of the whole 
Church. There was no nation in the West which was 
not Christian. The Lithuanians had been converted, and 
the Moors in Spain had been conquered. If there were 
any heathens left anywhere, it would be a few Laps in the 
extreme North. Nor was there any Christian nation in 
the West which refused submission to the See of Rome. 
The Albigenses had been put down long ago, and the revolt 
of the followers of John Huss in Bohemia had, after much 
hard fighting, been put down also. There had all along 
been religious discontents among particular men, and 
both in England and elsewhere many m*en had been 
burned as heretics. Still no whole nation had as yet set 
up any new ecclesiastical system for itself. But early in 
the sixteenth century there began to be a much greater 
stir about religious matters in most parts of Western 
Europe. This was partly owing to the general stir in 
men's minds caused by the revival of learning, and partly 
to the exceeding wickedness of the Popes of those times. 
There were three things at which men were specially 
offended. First, there were many practical abuses in the 
Church which could have been done away with without 
either casting off the authority of the Pope or making any 
changes in doctrine. Many of these things the Councils 
of the fifteenth century, at Constanz, Basel, and elsewhere, 
honestly tried to mend ; but the Popes always stood in the 
way. The Popes themselves in after days tried to mend 
many things, but not till it was too late. Then the authority 
of the Popes was itself felt to be a great grievance, partly 
because it was often so badly used, but also because, even 
when it was well used, it interfered with the rights both 
of civil governors and of national Churches. The truth 



XIIL] CAUSES OF THE REFORMATION. 239 

is that the power of the Bishops of Rome had grown up 
from the same causes as the power of the Emperors of Rome ^ 
that is, because Rome was the head city of the world. And 
now men were beginning to be discontented with the power 
of the Popes from the same causes whicli had made the 
power of the Emperors die away. That is to say, Christen- 
dom was spht up into separate nations and kingdoms, and 
Rome no longer kept its-place as the centre of all. But, as the 
power of the Popes was held to be a matter of religious belief, 
it was not so easy to get rid of it as it was to get rid of the 
power of the Emperors. And besides all this, many men held 
that not a few of the doctrines which were believed and 
of the ceremonies which were practised in the Church 
were wrong in themselves, and had no ground in Scrip- 
ture or in the practice of the first Christians. Disputes 
arose about the Mass or sacrament of the Lord's Supper, 
about the use of images and the practice of praying to 
saints, about the state of men after death, about the ne- 
cessity of confessing sins to a priest, about the laws which 
forbade the clergy to marry, and about the practice ot 
saying the Church service in Latin now that Latin was 
nowhere the tongue commonly understood. SomxC of these 
disputes were about points which the Popes might have 
yielded without giving up their general system, and which 
indeed they have sometimes yielded in distant parts of the 
world. But others were about points of doctrine strictly so 
called, which those who held them to be true could not give 
up so easily. Thus the early part of the sixteenth century 
was a time, above all others, of religious controversies, and 
these controversies led to the most important events, both 
religious and political. 

3. The Reformation in different Countries. — The end 
of all these disputes was that a large part of Western Europe 
gradually became separated from the communion of the See 



240 THE GREA TNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

of Rome. This gradual change is commonly called the Re- 
fonnatio?t. And, as in old times Christianity took different 
forms in the Latin, the Greek, and the Eastern provinces ot 
the Empire, so nearly the same thing happened now. Allowing 
for a good many exceptions, it may be said that the Teutonic 
nations accepted the new teaching, while the Romance nations 
clave to the See of Rome, And there were great differences 
in the way in which the Reformation arose and was carried 
Gilt in different countries. In some countries the change 
arose among the people and was rather forced upon the 
governments, while in others it was chiefly the work of 
Kings and rulers. And change went much further in some 
countries than in others. In some countries quite new forms 
of worship and Church government were set up, while in 
others men cast off the authority of the Pope and changed 
what they thought wrong in doctrine and practice, but let 
the general order of the Church go on much as it did before. 
Thus, in Great Britain, of all the countries which made 
any Reformation at all, England changed the least and 
Scotlafid the most. And in h'eland the great mass of the 
people have always withstood all change, partly no doubt 
because their Enghsh rulers tried to force it upon them. 
And, though the stirring of men's minds, and the habit of 
thinking for themselves which led to the Reformation, did 
in the end lead men in most countries to see that they 
ouo-ht not to persecute each other for differences in religion, 
yet they did not find this out for a long time. For a long 
time men on both sides held it to be a crime to allow any 
kind of worship except that which they themselves thought 
rio'ht. Thus the Reformation gave rise to civil wars 
wherever the two parties were nearly equally balanced, 
and to persecutions wherever one side was much stronger 
than the other. Those who clave to the old teaching thought 
it their duty to hinder the spread of the new, and those 



XIII.] -GROWTH OF SPAIN. 241 

who adopted the new teaching thought it their duty to 
hinder the practice of the old. It was only in a few cases, 
where neither side was strong enough to do much mischiet 
to the other, that the old and the new worship went on for 
any time side by side. Those who accepted the Reforma- 
tion were commonly called Protestant or Reformed, two 
names which at first had different meanings, but which are 
nov/ commonly used without much distinction. Those who 
clave to the Popes called themselves Catholics, as claiming 
to be the whole and only true Church. The other side called 
them, in contempt Papists and Romanists. Perhaps it is 
safest to use the name Roman Catholics, a name which is not 
very consistent with itself, but which avoids disputes either 
way, and which in England is the name known to the law. 

4. Growth of the power of Spain in Europe. Charles the 
Fifth. — From the latter part of the fifteenth century onwards 
the power of Spain grew fast, and during the greater part ot 
the sixteenth century we may fairly call it the greatest power 
in Europe. The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella had 
united A?'agon and Castile; they had conquered Granada, and, 
after Isabella's death in 1504, Ferdinand, in 15 12, conquered 
nearly all the Kingdom of Navarre, that is all south of the 
Pyrenees. The whole peninsula, except Portugal, was thus 
joined together. Ferdinand also held Sardinia and the 
island of Sicily, and in 1501, by wars which we must speak 
of presently, he also got possession of the continental king- 
dom of Naples. Isabella was succeeded in Castile by her 
daughter Joanna, who had married Philip of Austria. He was 
the son of Mai:y of Burgundy, the daughter of Charles th? 
Bold, and of Maximilian the son of the Emperor Frederick, 
who was chosen King of the Romans in his father's lifetime. 
Each chain in this pedigree ought to be remembered, because 
each marriage brought with it some fresh dominion, and so 
helped to build up the great fabric of the Spanish power, 

R 



242 TH.E GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

Mary, after her father's death, kept the Low Countries and the 
County of Burgundy, while Lewis of France seized the Duchy. 
Her son Philip was thus sovereign of the Low Countries. 
By his marriage with Joanna came the strange union of those 
distant provinces with the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. 
Thus Charles^ the son of Philip and Joanna, succeeded to all 
the possessions of the Houses of Castile, Aragon, and Bur- 
gundy. In 1 516 he succeeded one grandfather 7^^r^/^;^<r^;^rt? in 
his Spanish dominions, and in 1519, on the death of his other 
grandfather Maximilian, he was elected to the Empire. In 
Spain he was Charles the First, but, as he was the fifth 
Emperor of the name, he is always spoken of in history 
as Charles the Fifth. Thus the Emperor was again the 
greatest prince in Europe, but this was not because he was 
Emperor, but because of his dominions in Spain and the 
Netherlands. Charles could hardly be said to belong to any 
nation in particular, but he came in the male line of the 
House of Austria, and the Kings of Spain of his dynasty 
are called ih& Austrian Ki7tgs. He also obtained possession 
of the County of Burgundy and of the Duchy of Milan, and 
all these dominions he gave up to his son Philip in 1555. 

5. Successors of Charles the Fifth. — After Charles the 
Fifth came three Kings of Spain called Philip. Philip the 
Second reigned from 1556 to 1598. He was a most bigoted 
^Catholic, yet almost the first act of his reign was a war 
with the Pope Paul the Fotirth in his character as a temporal 
pi-ince. In Philip's time began the war in the Netherlands 
by which the northern provinces threw off the Spanish 
yoke, of whieh we shall speak more presently. It was he 
also who sent the famous Armada against England in 
1588, and he also interfered largely in the affairs of France. 
On the other hand, in 1571 his fleet, in alliance with that 
of the Commonwealth of Venice, won the sea-fight of 
Lepatito — the ancient Naupaktos in the Corinthian Gulf — 



XIII.] CHARLES THE FIFTH. 243 

over the Turks. This was the first great check which their 
power met with. In 1 580 he got possession of the Kingdom of 
Portugal, so that the whole Spanish peninsula was for a while 
joined together under one ruler. As long as Philip lived, Spain 
outwardly kept its place as the leading power of Europe ; but 
under the two following Kings, Philip the Third, who reigned 
from 1598 to 1 62 1, and Philip the Fourth, from 1621 to 1665, 
the Spanish power greatly decayed. The war in the Nether- 
la?ids went on till the independence of the seven northern 
provinces was acknowledged, and in 1639 the Porttiguess 
threw off the Spanish yoke, and set up the dynasty of Bra- 
ganza, which has reigned in Portugal till our own times. In 
the reign of Philip the Fourth there was a long war with 
France, which was ended in 1659 by giving up Roussillon 
and part of Artois to France. The Spanish dominions were 
thus lessened in various places, though Spain still kept her 
distant possessions of the Two Sicilies, Milan, the County ot 
Burgundy, and the Southern Netherlands. In its internal 
government, Spain was during, all this time, the most despotic 
and intolerant country in Europe. The old liberties of Castile 
were overthrown by Charles the Fifth, and those of Aragoft 
by Philip the Second. Nowhere were Jews and heretics of 
all kinds more cruelly persecuted, so that.in Spain the Refor- 
mation made no progress. The Moors too, who at the con- 
quest of Granada had been promised the free exercise of their 
religion, were shamefully oppressed. A revolt under Philip 
the Second was put down with great cruelty, and at last, under 
Philip the Third, the remnant of them, called Moriscos, was 
driven out of the country. This was a great loss to Spain, 
as the Moors were a sharp-witted and hard-working people, 
and the provinces where they lived were the most flourishing 
parts of the peninsula. 

6. French Invasion of Italy. — During the first half of the 
sixteenth century, no part of Europe is brought more con- 

R 2 



244 THE GREA TNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

stantly before our notice than Italy. But this is not now a 
sign of the greatness of Italy, but of its decay. Italy had 
now become the battle-field on which most of the princes of 
Europe fought out their quarrels. During all this time there 
was a long rivalry between France and S^ain, which was in 
some sort a continuation of the dispute between the Houses of 
Anjoit and Aragofi for the kingdom of Sicily, as that was a 
continuation of the older dispute between Guelfs and GhibelinSf 
But now that the two sides were represented by the great king- 
doms of France and Spain, the quarrel was carried out on a 
much greater scale, and, between the two, Italy was torn to 
pieces and utterly trampled under foot. What the Italians 
called the invasion of the Barbarians began in 1494, when 
Charles the Eighth of France took it into his head that he 
had a right to the Kingdom of Naples. In two years he 
marched all through Italy, conquered the kingdom with very 
little trouble, and, as soon as his back was turned, lost it 
again. Great confusion was caused throughout Italy by 
Charles' march,, and one result of it was that the Florentines 
were able to get rid of the Medici, and Pisa was able to throw 
off the yoke of Florence, and remained independent till 1509. 
Presently, when the next King of France, Lewis the Twelfth, 
again set up a claim to the Kingdom of Naples and also to 
the Duchy of Milan^ Ferdinand did not scruple to make a 
treaty by which Naples was to be divided between the two 
Kings of France and Aragon. Lewis won the Duchy of 
Milan in 1499, but, before the division of Naples was fully 
carried out, he and Ferdinand quarrelled over their spoil; 
and the end of it was, that in 1 504 Ferdinand got posses- 
sion of the whole kingdom, and was thus King of the Two 
Sicilies. In these wars the Spanish infantry won a renown 
which they long kept. 

7. The League of Cambray. — Spain had thus gained a 
footing on the mainland of Italy, and Ferdinand now went 



xni.] THE WARS OF ITALY. 



245 



on to meddle still more with its affairs. In 1508 he and 
Lewis of France, the reigning Pope Julius the Second, 
and the Emperor- elect Alaximiliaji, all joined together in a 
league, called the League of Cambray, to despoil the com- 
monwealth of Venice. For each of these princes pretended 
that part of its territories rightly belonged to himself. 
Venice now seemed on the point of rum, when again the 
spoilers quarrelled among themselves, but this time it 
did not happen as it had done in the case of Naples. 
For Venice got back nearly all that she had lost, though 
the commonwealth was never again so powerful after this 
war as she had been before. The cause of the division 
among the enemies of Venice was that Pope Julius, 
when he had got all that he himself wanted from the 
republic, made what he called the Holy League to drive 
the Barbarians out of Italy. To this end he joined with 
Ferdinand against Lewis. In 15 12 the French defeated the 
Spaniards in a great battle at Ravejma, but Pope Julius 
leagued himself with the Swiss, and by their means the 
French were altogether driven out of Italy. Florence had 
all along been in alliance with France, and, now that the 
French were driven out, the commonwealth was obliged ' 
to receive the Medici again. Milan also went back to its 
own Dukes of the House of Sforza. Lewis and Ferdinand 
both died before long, Lewis in 151 5, and Ferdinand in 15 16. 
8. Wars of Charles and Francis in Italy. — Lewis and Fer- 
dinand were succeeded by two young Kings vjhose rivalry 
led to more wars. Lewis was succeeded in France by 
Francis the First, and Ferdinand, as we have seen, by his 
grandson Charles. Both Charles and Francis sought for the 
Empire on the death of Charles' other grandfather Maximihan 
in 1 5 19, when Charles was elected. Thus the rivalry between 
France and Spain was yet further heightened by the personal 
rivalry between the two Kings. Francis had by far the most 



246 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

compact and united kingdom, but Chartes united the power ot 
Spain, the wealth of the Netherlands, and the dignity of the 
Empire. But before Charles succeeded, Francis had begun hi? 
reign by another invasion of Italy. He had first to overcome 
an army of Swiss in the battle of Marignano in 1 51 5, and 
he presently won back the Duchy of Milan. Then in 
1 52 1 Pope Leo the Te7ith, who was of the House of the 
Medici, joined with the Emperor, and another war began, 
which may be said to have gone on till 1530. The armies 
of the rival princes fought at both ends of Italy, both 
in the Duchy of Milan and in the Kingdom of Naples. 
In 1525 Francis himself was taken prisoner at the battle 
of Pavia, and was only released after consenting to a 
treaty (which he did not keep), by which he yielded many 
things to the Emperor. Amongst other things, those parts 
of the Netherlands which were held in fief of the Crown ot 
France, namely the Counties of Flanders and Artois, were 
set free from all homage, just as the Duchy of Aquitaine 
had been by the Peace of Bretigny. In all these wars the 
princes and commonwealths of Italy, the Popes among them, 
were dealt with as something quite secondary. The Duke oj 
Milan was set up and put down again, as happened to suit 
the Emperor who professed to be his protector; and in 1527, 
when Clement the Seventh, who was also of the House of 
the Medici, was Pope, Rome itself was taken and sacked by 
*he Imperial troops, and suffered far more from them than 
she had ever suffered in old times from the Goths or even 
from the Vandals. The Florentines took advantage of the 
taking of Rome again to get rid of the Medici. But at last 
in 1529, the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of France 
all came to terms. Francis betrayed all his allies, while 
Charles stuck by his. In 1530, Charles was crowned King of 
Italy and Emperor, but instead of taking the two crowns, one 
at Milan and the other at Rome, he took both crowns together 



XIII.] CHARLES AND FRANCIS. 247 

at Bologna. All Italy was now completely under his power. 
Charles was more powerful than any Emperor since Charles 
the Great, and it might have seemed that the. old days of the 
Empire were come again. But after the time of Charle's his 
power in Italy passed, not to the next Emperor, but to his 
son who reigned in Spain, so that it was plain where his real 
strength lay. 

9. The States of Italy. — The end of these wars thus was 
that the power of the Emperor,. or rather of the King of Spain, 
was established throughout Italy. Charles was himself King 
of the Two Sicilies, and, on the death of the last Duke 
of Milan, he granted the Duchy to his son Philip, so that 
the Kings of Spain ruled at both ends of Italy. The 
other states of Italy too were really under his power, 
much as, in the old days of Rome, the kingdoms and 
commonwealths of Greece and Asia had been before they 
were actually made into provinces. But there was one 
Italian state which at least did not yield without a struggle. 
This was the commonwealth oi Flore?ice, which the Pope and 
the Emperor agreed should be obliged again to take back the 
Medici, but it did not do so till after a long and terrible siege. 
Then princes of the house of the Medici began to reign as 
Dukes of Florence, and in 1557 Duke Cosmo added to his do- 
minions the territory of the commonwealth of Sie7ina. Some 
time after this he got from the Pope and the Emperor the 
title of Grand Duke of Ticscany, and the memory of the old 
republic \was quite wiped out. Of the other commonwealths 
Venice, Genoa, and Lucca, besides the little Sa7i MarinOy 
still went on. But their governments were aristocratic, 
and the only one of them which played any great part in 
European affairs was Venice, which was still the bulwark of 
Christendom by sea, as Poland and Hungary were by land. 
But, in the course of the sixteenth century, the Turks won 
from the Venetians many of their possessions both in the 



248 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 



islands and on the few points which they held on the main- 
land of Peloponnesos. And, notwithstanding their share in 
the great victory of Lepanto, they had in 1570 to give up tho 
island of Cyprus, which the Turks had conquered, but they 
still kept Crete and Corfu and some of the smaller islands. 

10. The Popes. — The Popes must, especially in these times, 
be looked at in two lights, as Italian princes and as the heads 
of those of the Western Churches Avhich still clave to them. 
In their temporal character the Popes were much mixed up in 
the wars of Italy, and they had the great advantage of being 
able to call on men to support their political schemes under 
pretence of helping the cause of the Church. During the 
sixteenth, century the Popes greatly extended their temporal 
dominion, joining on to it many principalities and cities, 
which, as they gave out, were held in fief of them ; so that, it 
their holders rebelled or if their families became extinct, they 
would fall to the Pope as superior lord. In this way the 
Popes came to be, even as temporal princes, the greatest 
power in Italy after the Kings of Spain. At the latter end of 
the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the 
corruption of the court of Rome, and the personal wicked- 
ness of the Popes, was at its height. Some of them were men 
of most scandalous lives, as was Alexander the Sixth of the 
Spanish family of Borgia, who was Pope when Charles the 
Eighth came into Italy. And even those who were not so 
bad as this were thoroughly worldly men, thinking more of 
increasing their dominions and exalting their own kinsfolk 
than of doing their duty as the chief Bishops of the 
Church. Such was Julius the Secojid, the great fighting 
Pope, and Leo the Tenth and Clement the Seventh, the two 
Popes of the house of Medici. Between them came Hadrian 
the Sixth, a native of the Netherlands, an honest man 
and anxious to reform practical abuses, but who had no 
kind' of love for Italian ways, or for the revival of ancient 



xiii.] THE POPES. 249 

learning, of which Leo the Tenth was a great promoter. 
Hadrian however reigned only a very little time. It was in 
the time of Leo the Tenth that the Reformation began to 
be preached by Martin Luther in Germany, but the Popes 
for some time took but little heed of what was going on. But 
towards the middle of the century things began to change. 
The Reformation, as a system of doctrine, made but little 
progress in Italy, and it never became the religion of any 
Italian state. But there were many men, even high in the 
Roman Church, who would have gladly yielded to the Re- 
formers on some points, and there were still more who, without 
wishing to change any of the received doctrines, were eager to 
reform practical abuses and get rid of scandals. In this way 
there came to be a marked change between the Popes at the 
beginning of the century and those towards its end. These 
later Popes were often fierce bigots, ready to persecute and 
to approve of crimes done in the cause of the Church ; but 
they were almost always men of good lives in their own 
persons, and eager to do what they thought their duty. One 
famous Pope at this time was Sixtus the Fifth, who reigned 
from 1585 to 1590; he was wonderfully active in bringing 
his temporal dominions into good order. In 1545 a General 
Council came together at Tre7tt, which went on, with some 
stoppages, till 1 563. This Council reformed many practical 
abuses, but it fixed the Roman Catholic doctrines and 
practices in a much more rigid shape than they had ever been 
put forth before. Its decrees were not received by the Churches 
which accepted the Reformation, and therefore the holding 
of the Council only made the breach wider and more hopeless. 
During this time too new religious orders were formed for the 
special purpose of advancing the doctrines of the Church and 
converting heretics and heathens. The chief of these was 
the famous Society of Jesus, or Order of the Jesuits, founded 
by the Spaniard Ignatius Loyola. This order was for a long 



250 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN: [chap. 

time the chief support of the Papal dominion ; and the Jesuits 
won back a large part of Europe to the communion of Rome, 
but in most countries, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, 
they contrived to make themselves obnoxious to the civil 
power. 

II. The Emperors. — Frederick the Third was the last 
Emperor who was regularly crowned at Rome. His son 
Maximilian, who married Mary of Burgundy, was never 
crowned either at Milan or at Rome, but he took the new 
title of Emperor-elect instead of merely King of the Romans. 
No later Emperor except Charles the Fifth was crowned in 
Italy at all, and Charles, as we have seen, was not crowned at 
Rome. Maximilian also took the title, which had never 
before been formally used, of King of Germany^ and all the 
Kings after him were called in formal language Kings of 
Germany, and Emperors-elect. And they were commonly 
spoken of as Emperors, which before was never done unless 
they had been crowned at Rome. Maximilian was always 
trying to do greater things than he was able to do, but, as 
King of Germany, he certainly did something to restore .the 
royal power, and much more to bring the country into greater 
peace and order. In his time Germany was divided into 
Circles, and a supreme court called the hnperial Chamber 
was set up, changes which did not do all that they were wished 
to do, but still did something. Then came the reign of 
Charles the Fifth, and the great power of the Emperor, 
though not of the Empire, in Italy and the world generally. 
After Charles's abdication, his brother Ferdinand, who was 
already King of the Romans, succeeded. In his time and 
in that of his successors Maximiliaft the Secona, Rudolf the 
Second, and Matthias, we may say that the Empire was purely 
German and had nothing to do with the affairs of Italy or of 
the world in general. In the next reign, that of Ferdinand' 
the Second^ things began to change somewhat. 



xm.] MARTIN LUTHER. 251 

12. The Reformation in Germany. — In the reign of 
Charles the Fifth came the beginning of the Reformation. 
Nowhere was reformation more needed than in Germany, 
where the Bishops and Abbots had grown into powerful 
temporal princes, and quite neglected their spiritual duties. 
Towards the end of Maximilian's reign attempts began 
to be made in the Diet for the reformation of practical 
abuses, and about the same time the famous Martin Luther 
began to attack, first the practical abuses, and then the 
established doctrines, of the Church. This he began to do 
in 1 5 17, and he was greatly followed by many people, 
though little notice was at first taken of him in high places. 
Luther was protected by his own sovereign Frederick 
Elector of Saxony; and, when in 1520 a bull — that is, a 
writing with the Pope's seal — was put forth against him 
by Pope Leo the Tenth, Luther ventured to burn it. By 
this time Charles the Fifth had been elected Emperor, and 
in 1 52 1 Luther was condemned in a Diet of the Empire 
at Worms. But Luther was still protected by the Electors 
of Saxony, and gradually ma.ny of the princes and cities of 
Germany, especially in the north, embraced his doctrines. 
Germany was further disturbed by a revolt of the peasants 
in various parts, the only effect of which was to make their 
bondage harder than it had been before. There were also 
revolts of the Anabaptists, fanatics who not only preached 
wild doctrines in religion, but tried to upset all government 
and society. Against all movements of this kind, Luther 
set himself quite as strongly as the Catholics did. His own 
reformation meanwhile went on. At the Diet of Speyer in 
1529 the Emperor and a majority of the Diet passed a decree 
against all ecclesiastical changes. Against this the princes 
who followed Luther protested, and thus arose the name 
of Protestants, a name which originally meant the German 
followers of Luther as distinguished, not.only from the Pvoman 



252 THE GREA TNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

Catholics, but from the other Reformers who did not agree with 
Luther in ail points. In 1530 the Lutherans or Protestants 
drew u.p a statement of their doctrines, which was called 
the Confession of Atigsburg; in the next year the Protestant 
princes and cities joined together in a eonfisderacy for mutual 
defence, which was called the Smalcaldic League. But, when 
some of them tried to get help from France., Luther protested 
against such treason, and a kind of reconciliation was 
patched up with the Emperor. There wa'S no time when 
Germany more needed to be at peace, for, besides France on 
the one hand, the Turks were threatening on the other, 
and Sultdin Stileima?i or Solomon in 1529 actually besieged 
Vienna, and ravaged the country as far as Rege-nsbzirg. or 
Ratisbon. In 1 546 Luther died, and in the same year a war 
broke out between the Emperor and the Catholics on one 
side and the Protestant princes on the other, which went, on 
with some stoppages till in 1555, by the Peace qf Atigsburg, 
the two religions were put on terms of equality throughout 
the Empire. But this was no real toleration ; it simply meant 
that the Government of each German state might set up 
which religion it pleased. Catholic or Protestant ; nothing 
was done for those persons in any state who might be of a 
different religion from the Government, Thus, for instance, 
in Austria, where a large part of the people had become 
Protestants, the Catholic religion was brought back chiefly 
by t5ie help of the Jesuits. And in the same way Protes- 
tants of one sect did not scruple to persecute Protestants 
of another ; for in some parts of Germany men had fol- 
lowed the doctrines of the French reformer Calvin, and they 
and the Lutherans drove one another out. D.uring Ferdi- 
nand's time and that of the following Emperors, religious 
disputes went on, till, in the reign of Ferdinand the Second, 
cam^ the beginning of a more fearful religious war than had 
ever happened before between Christian and Christian. 



XIII.] FRANCIS THE FIRST. 253 

13. The Advance of France. — The power of France was 
meanwhile advancing, and the jealousy between the French 
Kings and the House of Austria, both in Spain and in the 
Netherlands, was getting stronger and stronger. The Kings 
of France were getting more and more absolute in their own 
dominions, and they were still increasing their do-minions 
at the expense of their neighbours. In their Itahan wars 
they failed ; for they were never able to keep either the 
Duchy of Milan or the Kingdom of Naples. But the only 
great fief of the Crown of France which still kept its own 
princes was now added to the royal dominions. This was 
the Duchy of Brita?tny, which passed to an heiress, Anne, 
who married two Kings of France in succession, Charles the 
Eighth and Lewis the Twelfth. From this time Britanny 
has been reckoned part of France, but to this day a large 
part of the people do not speak French, but still use their 
old Celtic tongue, akin to the Welsh of Britain. Lewis the 
Twelfth, though he did so much harm in Italy, made a good 
King in his own kingdom, and was called the Father of the 
People. The next King, Frajtcis the First, was thoroughly 
bad in every way, except that he was a promoter of art and 
learning. All these Kings were of the House of Valois, but 
as neither Charles the Eighth nor Lewis the Twelfth left 
any children, the Crown did not again pass from father to 
son till the death of Francis in 1547, when it passed to his 
son Henry the Second. There were some wars between 
France and England at this time, but they were of small 
moment compared with those either earlier or later. At one 
time, in 1544, Henry the Eighth of England took Boulogne, 
but in 1557 the French got back Calais, which the English 
had kept ever since the time of Edward the Third. But these 
wars with England were nothing compared with the long wars 
which Francis and his son Henry waged with the Emperor 
Charles and his son Philip. These may be S9,id to have 



254 THE GREA 7 NESS OF SPAIN: [chap. 

gone on from 1520 to 1558. For, though peace was made 
several tunes, it never was well kept or lasted long. The 
French Kings, while cruelly persecuting the Protestants in 
their own kingdom, did not scruple to help the Protestants 
in Germany in their wars with the Emperor, nor were they 
ashamed to encourage the Turks, the common enemies ot 
Christendom, to attack the Empire and its allies by land and 
sea. In 1537 Francis got hold of the greater part of the 
dominions of Charles Duke of Savoy, but this conquest 
was not kept very long. Thus far the French Kings had 
mainly sought after Italian dominion ; they now began more 
directly to attack the Empire on the side of Germany. In 
1552 Henry the Second got hold of three Bishopricks of 
the Empire, Metz, Toul, and Verdun, which, though they lay 
apart from the Kingdom of France and were surrounded 
by the Duchy of Lorraine, were kept by France ever after, 
till Metz was won back in our own times. Indeed from this 
time, though Lorraine remained a fief of the Empire, yet 
it began to come very much under the power of France, and 
the family of Guise, who were of the ducal House of Lor- 
raine, began to play a great part in French affairs. After 
Charles had abdicated, the war still went on, though of course 
it was now a war between France and Spain, and no longer 
between France and the Empire. At last the French under- 
went two great defeats at St. Quentin and Gravelines, on the 
borders of France and the Netherlands, so the Peace of 
Cdteau-Cambresis was made in 1558, and the advance of the 
French power was stopped for a time. 

14. The Civil Wars of France.— From the Peace of 
Cateau-Cambresis till the end of the sixteenth century, the 
history of France is mainly taken up with the religious wars 
between the Catholics and Protestants within the country. 
These lasted, with stoppages now and then, from 1562 to 
1595. The French Protestants were not Lutherans, but 



XIII.] CIVIL WARS IN FRANCE. 255 

followers of John Chauvin, or Calvin, a Frenchman by 
birth, who settled at Geneva. His teaching went further 
away from that of the Roman Church than Luther's did. 
It was followed by all who accepted the Reformation in 
the Romance-speaking countries, and also in part of Ger- 
many. The name Protestant therefore did not properly 
belong to the Calvinists in France, who called themselves 
the Reformed, and who were commonly known as Huguenots. 
They were cruelly persecuted under Francis and Henry the 
Second. After Henry three of his sons reigned in order, 
Francis the Second from 1559 to 1560, Charles the Ninth 
from 1560 to 1574, and Henry the Third from 1574 to 1589. 
The mother of these three Kings, Catharine of Medici, of 
the House of Florence, had great power, which she used 
very badly, during the reigns of all her sons. The rehgious 
wars began in 1562, and in the latter part of them the 
chief part on the Reformed side was taken by Henry of 
Bourbon, King of Navarre. He was the next heir to the 
Crown of France after the sons of Henry the Second, 
though the kindred between them in the male line was very 
remote, as they were descended from different sons of Saint 
Lewis. Henry had inherited from his mother- the title of 
King of Navarre, and with it the possession of that small 
part of the kingdom which lay north of the Pyrenees, and which 
had been kept by its own Kings when all the rest had been con- 
quered by Ferdinand of Aragon. He had also large fiefs in 
the South of France, which was the part where the Huguenots 
were the strongest, like the Albigenses in the old times. The 
two parties were always going to war, and always making 
peace again ; but, when peace was made, it never gave 
any real toleration. The Reformed religion was allowed to 
be practised in particular towns and places, but men were 
not allowed to follow what religion they pleased everywhere. 
Philip of Spain meddled as much as he could, of course helping 



256 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

the Catholics. The most famous event of these times was the 
massacre of the Huguenots at Paris on Saint Bartholomew's 
Day, 1572, which was called the Massacre of Samt Bartholo- 
mew. At last, when Henry the Third died in 1589, the 
Crown came of right to Henry of Navarre, but he found that, 
as long as he remained a Huguenot, Paris and the greater 
part of the kingdom would not acknowledge him. So in 
1593 he turned Catholic, and then he soon obtained posses- 
sion of the whole land. Instead of the old title of King oj 
the French (in Latin Rex Fra7.tcorti?7t), he called himself King 
of France and Navarre. Henry was murdered in 1610, and 
was succeeded by his young son, Lewis the Thirteenth, who 
reigned till 1643, and under whose famous minister Cardinal 
Richelieu, the House of Bourbon began to take the first place 
in Europe instead of the House of Austria. 

15, The Revolt of the Netherlands. — -JMeanwhile a deadly 
blow was dealt to the power of Spain in her distant posses- 
sions, and a new commonwealth arose in Europe. It will 
be remembered that the Netherlands had been brought 
together under the Dukes of Burgundy, and they had now 
passed to Philip of Spain as their successor. They were 
a most important part of his dominions, for nowhere else 
in Europe were there so many great and rich cities near 
together ; but the bad government of Philip, especially 
his religious persecutions, and above all the cruelties of 
his Lieutenant the Duke of Alva, led to a revolt. This 
began in 1568, and the war went on till 1609. The great 
leader of the revolt was William Prince of Orange, called 
the Silent. His principality of Orange was one of the 
small fiefs of the Kingdom of Burgundy which had not been 
swallowed up by France, though it was now almost wholly 
surrounded by French territory. In this he was something 
like Henry of Bourbon, with his little kingdom of Navarre, 
for the Prince of Orange had private estates in the Nether- 



XIII.] REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS. 257 



lands which were really worth much more than his princi- 
pality. His wisdom and endurance led to the deliverance of 
all the northern part of the Netherlands from the Spanish 
yoke. At the beginning of the revolt the Southern provinces 
were the most zealous ; but after a while, as their people were 
mainly Catholics, they fell back under the power of Spain, 
and they remained a dependency of one power after another, 
till such parts of them as escaped being swallov/ed up by 
France became the present Kmgdom of Belgium. 

16. The United Provinces. — Meanwhile the Northern pro- 
vinces, Holland, Zealaitd^ and others, where the people were 
mostly of the Reformed religion, stuck by the Prince of Orange, 
and' called in help from England, France, and the German 
branch of the House of Austria. But none of these foreign 
helpers did them much real good ; so at last they formed them- 
selveSj in 1581, into the Federal Commotiwealth of the Seven 
United Provinces. In 1584 the Prince v/as murdered ; for 
Philip, who Stuck at no crime in v.'hat he thought the cause 
either of the Crown or of the Church, had offered rewards- to 
any one who would murder him. After William's death the war 
was continued by his son Maurice, and it went on after Philip's 
death till peace was made in 1609. The peace was in name 
only a truce for twelve yea-rs, because Spain was too proud to 
acknowledge the independence of her revolted subjects, but 
the v/ar now really came to an end, and the United Provinces^ 
answering nearly to the present Kingdom of the Netherlands, 
were firmly established as an independent power. This was 
one of the most famous wars in all history, for never did so 
small a power so long and so successfully withstand a great 
one. Some of the greatest generals of the age were brought 
against the Provinces. There was the Duke of Alva first, 
and then Don John of Austria, Philip's half-brother, who had 
won the battle of Lepanto, his nephew the famous Alexander 
Duke of Parma, and lastly the Marqtiess Spinola, whose 

S 



258 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

great exploit was the siege of Ostend, in the latter years of 
the war. The Dutch, as the people of Holland and the other 
United Provinces are now commonly called in a special way, 
did everything for themselves ; for they, got hardly any real 
help from those who professed to be their allies in England 
and France. Thus a new state and a new commonwealth was 
formed in Europe. In strictness the Provinces were still 
members of the Empire, but their allegiance was quite nomi- 
nal, and in 1648 their absolute independence of the Empire 
v/as formally acknowledged. Owing chiefly to the daring and 
activity of their people in all things to do with trade and 
the sea, the United Provinces, small as their territory was, 
reckoned during the whole of the seventeenth century as 
one of the chief powers of Europe. They came afterwards 
to defy France, as they had before defied Spain, and things 
so turned about that, before the end of the century, they 
were helping Spain against France. 

17. Switzerland and Savoy. — Meanwhile the older Federal 
commonwealth which had grown up at the other end of the 
Empire was playing an important part in European affairs. 
From the middle of the fourteenth century till after the war 
with Burgundy, the Confederates had made many conquests 
and alliances, but they did not admit any new Canton into their 
own body. But in the latter years of the fifteenth and the be- 
ginning of the sixteenth century five new Cantons were made, 
Freiburg, Solothurn, Basel, S chaff hausen, and Appcnzell. 
These made up the Thirteen Cantons, which lasted till the end 
of the eighteenth century. All these were purely German, but 
now begins the connexion of the League with the Romance 
lands. About the end of the fifteenth century the Confederates 
won a small territory in Italy, and we have seen that they 
played a great part in the wars of that country. And, ever 
since the Burgundian War, they had been making their way 
to the West, in the lands of the now pretty v/ell forgotten 



XIII.] SWITZERLAND AND SAVOY. 259 

Kingdom of Burgundy. The history of the Dukes of Savoy 
now becomes of great importance. For, whereas they had 
lands both in Burgundy and in Italy, they have almost ever 
since been losing their lands north of the Alps and wdnning 
new lands to the south. At last, in our own day, they have 
lost all their old Bitrgimdian dominions, but have become 
Kings of all Italy. But at this time it seemed as if the power 
of Savoy was going to be wiped out altogether. We must 
remember that the territories both of the Confederates and of 
the Dukes of Savoy were still parts of the Empire, though 
their real connexion with it was very slight. As in Germany, 
religious and political affairs had much to do with one an- 
other ; but Switzerland had its own Reformation distinct from 
that of Germany. The new doctrines were first preached at 
Zurich in 15 19, by Ulrich Zwingli, whose teaching in many 
things went further away from the received faith than that of 
Luther. He also did good by speaking against the custom 
of men hiring themselves out as mercenary soldiers. Zurich, 
Bern, and several other Cantons accepted his teaching, 
while others remained Catholic and some were divided. A 
civil war followed, and Zwingli was killed in battle in 153 1. 
Meanwhile the Reformation was preached by William Faj'el 
in the lands bordering on the Confederates to the west, 
and especially in the free city of Geneva. That city was 
hemmed round by the dominions of the Dukes of Savoy, who 
were always wishing to get hold of it. Now that Geneva 
had embraced the Reformed religion, there was a further 
pretext for attacking it, and in 1534 Duke Charles of Savoy 
besieged the city. But Geneva was in alliance with Bern and 
with some others among the Confederates ; so a Bernese 
army marched to deliver Geneva, and at the same time took 
the opportunity of conquering a large part of the dominions 
of Savoy on both sides of the Lake of Geneva. Other parts 
were seized by the Canton of Freiburg, though it remained 

S 2 



26o THE GREATNESS 0-F SPAIN. [chap. 

Catholic, and by the Httle Confederation of Wallis or Valais, 
which was in alliance with the Swiss. Bern not long after 
also annexed the Bishoprick of Lausanne — the Bishop of 
Lausanne, like other Bishops of the Empire, being a temporal 
prince — but in 1564 she restored to Savoy her conquests south 
of the Lake. The result of all this was that the Confede- 
rates, themselves a purely German body, became the head 
of a large number of Romance-speaking subjects and allies, 
who in later times have been made Cantons alongside 
of the original German States. Geneva from this time 
remained a free city, though the Dukes of Savoy still 
sometimes tried to seize upon it. And presently the great 
French Reformer, Joh?i Calvin, came there, and became 
the real ruler of the city, which thus grew into a kind 
of centre for men of all lands who followed his doctrines. 
After this time the affairs of the Confederates had but little 
to do with the general state of things in Europe, but it 
should be noticed that in 1648 they were, like the United 
Provinces, acknowledged to be quite independent of the 
Empire. As for Savoy, almost as soon as Bern had con- 
quered the northern districts, the whole of the Duke's 
dominions were overrun by France, but they were gradually 
won back by the next Duke E?nmanuel Filibert. From 
this time the Dukes of Savoy began to look more to 
their Italian than to their Burgundian dominions. Thus a 
dispute with France about the marquisate of Saluzzo was 
ended by the Duke Cha?'les Emmanuel, who reigned from 
1580 to 1630, keeping Saluzzo and giving up the district 
of Bresse to France. These are but small districts, but 
they show the way in which France was winning the old 
Burgundian lands bit by bit, while Savoy was losing territory 
iiorth of the Alps and gaining it in Italy. 

18. The Reformation in England. — The affairs of the 
countries of which we have thus far spoken were all 



XIII.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. 261 

closely conn.ected with one another, Englaiid meanwhile 
was constantly mixed up with the general course of affairs, 
but she did not engage in any such great wars on 
the Continent as she did in either earlier or later times. 
After the ending of the great war with France, England 
was torn in pieces by the Civil Wars between the different 
claimants of the Crown of the Hotises of York and Lan- 
caster, and there was no King whose title was altogether un- 
disputed till the accession of Henry the Eighth in 1 509. He 
was always mixed up with foreign affairs ; and when the 
Empire was vacant, in 15 19, he had some notion of getting 
chosen himself, and there was talk more than once of his 
famous minister, Cardinal JVotsey, being chosen Pope. But 
in truth nothing very great was done by England on the 
Continent at this time, except that, as we have seen, the 
English conquered, and for a short time kept Boulogne, 
The Reformation in England is commonly said to have 
begun under Henry the Eighth, but in truth Henry changed 
very little either in doctrine or in ceremony. What was done 
in his time was to restore and enlarge the authority which the 
old Kings had in ecclesiastical matters, and to declare that the 
Pope had no jurisdiction in England. All through his time 
men who taught the Reformed doctrines were burned as here- 
tics. It was only when Henry's son, Edward the Sixth, suc- 
ceeded, in 1547, that any strictly religious changes were 
made. Then, in 1553, came Henry's daughter Alary, She 
was, through her mother Katharine of Aragon, a cousin of the 
Emperor Charles, and she married his son Philip, afterwards 
Philip the Second of Spain. Thus England was in close 
alliance with Spain and at enmity with France. Now it was 
that England lost Calais, and so had no longer any posses- 
sions on the continent. Mary also undid all that had been 
done by her father and brother ; not only were the old doc- 
trines and ceremonies restored, but the authority of the Pope 



262 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

was set up again. Under her sister Elizabeth, who began to 
reign in 1558, the English Reformation was finally settled. 
The Pope's authority was again thrown off, such changes as 
were thought needful were made in doctrine and worship, 
but the general system and government of the Church went 
on. But the reign of Philip and Mary, under which many men 
were burned for their religion, had thoroughly set English- 
men against anything that had to do with either Spain or 
the Pope, and many men in England wished that change had 
gone further in religious matters than it had gone. 

19. England and Scotland. — Meanwhile the relations be- 
tw.een England and the neighbouring Kingdom of Scotland 
were very important. The old wars often began again, and, 
when James the Fifth of Scotland died in 1541, leaving only 
a young daughter called Ma?y, there was talk of joining the 
two kingdoms by marrying her to Henry the Eighth's son 
Edward, afterwards Edward the Sixth. But all that came of 
this was further wars, and the throwing of Scotland still more 
thoroughly on the side of France. Queen Mary M^as brought 
up in France and she married the Dauphin /^?'«;/<:z>, who was 
afterwards King for a little while. She was thus Queen of 
Scotland and Queen Consort of France, and she claimed to 
be Queen of England also, because, according to the extreme 
views of the Papal power, she had a better right to the English 
Crown than Elizabeth. After the death of Francis she went 
back to Scotland, but about this time the greater part of the 
people of Scotland embraced the Reformation in a very ex- 
treme form, while Mary stuck to the old religion. She was 
afterwards driven out of her kingdom for her personal crimes, 
and took refuge in England, where she was kept in ward 
for many years. She thus naturally got to be looked on as 
a Catholic saint and confessor, and she becam.e a centre of 
conspiracies against Elizabeth at home and abroad. At last, 
in 1587, she was beheaded for her share in a plot against 



Xin.] ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 263 

Elizabeth's life. The indignation of the Catholic party every- 
where was great, and now the quarrel between England and 
Spain broke out on a great scale. Elizabeth and Philip had 
for many years been doing each other harm in a small way, 
but now in 1588 Philip sent his great A?'inada against England, 
which did nothing. Elizabeth now came to be looked on as 
the head of the Reformed party throughout Europe, and she 
gave some help at different times to the Reformers both in 
France and in the Netherlands. The war between England 
and Spain went on during all Elizabeth's reign ; but when, 
on her death in 1603, the Crowns of England and Scotland 
were united under Mary's son James, Sixth of Scotland and 
First of England, the policy of England altogether changed. 
For James truckled to Spain, and England for a long time 
lost the position which she had before held in Europe. 
The reign of his successor Chaj'les the First was mainly taken 
up with internal affairs, and the latter years of it with the great 
Civil War, which led to the King's beheading in 1649. All this 
time is one of the most important of English history, both 
in England and Scotland, but it is mainly taken up with the 
internal affairs of the two countries, which have comparatively 
little to do with the general course of things in Europe. But 
the union of England and Scotland under one King had this 
effect, that Scotland was no longer the enemy of- England, 
nor could it any longer be an ally of France in wars between 
France and England. 

20, Northern Europe. — It was in the beginning of the six- 
teenth century that the attempt to join together the Scan- 
dinavian kingdoms of Dentnark, Norway^ and Sweden^ which 
had never been carried out for any long time together, came 
wholly to an end. Christia?i the Second, called Christian the 
Cruel, who became King of Denmark and Norway in 15 13, 
became King of Sweden also in 1520 ; but his oppression pro- 
voked revolts in all his dominions. In 1523 he was driven 



254 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

out of both Denmark and Sweden. The Swedes chose as their 
King the famous Gustavus Vasa, who had been their leader 
in driving out Chri'stian. He brought in the doctrines of 
Luther, but less change was made in the order and govern- 
ment of the Church in Sweden than anywhere else except in 
England. Under Gustavus Sweden began to rise to a much 
higher position in Europe than it had ever held before. He 
died in 1560, and the Kings who followed him were of no 
great account till the famous Gustavus Adolphus^ who 
began to reign in 161 1. Of him we shall hear more in the 
history of the great wars in Germany. On his death in 
1632 came his daughter Christina, in whose time a part of 
Norway, the province of yamte land with, other districts, and 
the isle of Gotland^ were won from Denmark. All this 
while Denmark and Norway remained under the same 
King, Under Frederick the First, who reigned from 
1523 to 1533, the Lutheran religion was established in 
Denmark ; but after his death there were disputes about 
the succession to the Crown, and wars with the city of 
Liibeck. Under Frederick the Second, who reigned from 
1559 to 1588, the free people of Ditmai'sen, who had all 
this time kept on their old freedom at that end of Germany 
just as the Forest Cantons did at the other end, and who 
had more than once defeated the Counts of Holstein and 
Kings of Denmark, were at last conquered. His son Christian 
the Foiirth reigned from 1588 to 1648, and we shall hear of 
him again. 

21. Russia and Poland. — In Poland and Lithuania the 
descendants of J age lion went on reigning till nearly the 
end of the sixteenth century. Under them Poland was 
at the height of its power, and it formed one of the greatest 
states of Europe. Its territory nov/ stretched far to the east, 
and took in large countries which had once been part of 
Russia, and which have since become part of Russia again. 



XIII.] JiUSSIA AND POLAND. 265 

But. in the course of the sixteenth century, when the Rus- 
sian power began to rise again, parts of these territories 
were won back again, and from that time the Polish frontier 
has commonly gone back. But before this, as we have seen, 
the Teuto7tic Order was greatly humbled in 1466, when 
the Knights had to cede the western part of Prjissia to 
Poland, and to hold the eastern part as a fief of the 
Polish Crown. This led to a further change in 1525. 
The Grand-Master Albert of Brandenburg had become a 
Lutheran. By a treaty with Sigismti7id the Fh'st of Poland, 
the Teutonic order w^as abolished as a sovereign po-wer, 
and Albert became hereditary Dtike of Prussia^ holding 
his duchy, which took in East Przissia only, as a fief 
of Poland. After a few generations the Duchy of Prussia 
and the Maj'k or Electorate of Brandenburg were, in 161 1, 
joined together. Thus began the power of the House of 
Brandenburg or Pmssta, which has gone on so greatly grow- 
ing to our own times. In 1657, under Frederick Willia?n 
the First, who was called the Great Elector, the Duchy 
of Prussia became independent of the Crown of Poland, 
just as the Duchy of Aquitaine three hundred years before 
became independent of the Crown of France. In 1701, to 
go on some way beyond our present time, the great Elector^s 
son Frederick took the title of Ki7ig of Prussia instead of 
Duke. Thus the Electors of Brandenburg, besides their 
possessions in Germany, held the Duchy or Kingdom of 
Prussia, which was cut off from their Electorate by that part 
of Prussia which had been ceded to Poland. The other 
possessions of the Order to the North were treated in 
nearly the same way. In 1561 the Grand-Master of Livonia, 
Gotthard Kettler, who had also turned Lutheran, gave up all 
the dominions of the order to Poland, except Curland, which 
was made into a Duchy for himself, just like Prussia for 
Albert. But in the one case, out of the treaty with Albert, 



266 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

arose one of the great states of Europe, while out of the 
treaty with Kettler nothing came but long wars between 
Sweden and Poland for the lands east of the Baltic, till in the 
end they were all swallowed up by Russia. But long before 
this Russia was making great advances, yohn or Ivan the 
Fourth, known as Ivan the Terrible, reigned from 1533 to 
1584, and his doings towards his own subjects were among 
the strangest in history. But, besides wars with Sweden and 
Poland waged with various success, he altogether overthrew 
the power of the Moguls or Tartars of Kasan, who had 
once held Russia in bondage ; he took Astrakhan also, and so 
extended the Russian dominions to the Caspian Sea. He was 
the first of the Russian princes who took the title of Czar. 
Some say that this name is simply a Slavonic word meaning 
Ki7ig, while according to others it is the Russian form of 
CcBsarj anyhow it is certain that the sovereigns of Russia, who 
have latterly been called Emperors, have always wished, as 
the most powerful princes belonging to the Eastern Church, 
to be looked on as successors of the Eastern Emperors. 
Russia was now a powerful state, but it was cut off from 
the Baltic by the Poles and Swedes, and from the Black Sea 
by the Tartars of Cri7n, or the Crimea, so that Russia had 
.no havens except on the Caspian and the White Sea. It was 
by the White Sea, from the port of Archangel, that Russia 
now began .to have trade with England and the other nations 
of the West. In 1589 the old line of Ruric came to an end, 
and great confusions followed, among which the Poles were 
able in 1605 to place a pretender, who professed to be the 
true heir, on the Russian throne. But in 161 3 the Russians 
chose Michael Romanoff, from whom the present royal 
family springs in the female line, and Russia began to 
flourish again, though it had to wage wars with Sweden 
and Poland with various success to the end of the century. 
In 1573 the Poles made their crown purely elective, instead 



xin.] RUSSIA AND POLAND. 267 

of choosing, as before, from the royal family. Sometimes 
they ■ chose a native Pole, sometimes a foreign prince ; 
but from this time all power came into the hands of 
the nobles, to the damage both of the King and of the 
people, and Poland began to go down both at home and 
abroad. 

22. Turkey and Hungary. — Under Bajazet the Second^ 
the successor of Mahomet the Conqueror, the Ottoman 
power did not advance, but in some parts rather fell 
back. In his time a new Mahometan enemy rose to the 
east of him. This was the modern kingdom of Persia^ 
which rose again, very much as Persia had risen again under 
Artaxerxes in the third century, by the preaching of a national 
religion. Only this time it was not the preaching of the old 
Persian rehgion, but that of the Shiah sect of Mahomet- 
anism. The Turks and Persians were thus not only pohtical 
enemies, but looked on each other as heretics. The new 
dynasty, which began with Shah Isinael in 1501, was 
known as that of the Sophis. Endless wars now followed 
between the Turks and the Persians ; meanwhile Seliin the 
Inflexible, who reigned from 15 12 to 1520, added Syria and 
Egypt to the Ottoman Empire, and obtained a surrender of 
the Caliphate from the nominal Abbasside Caliph at Cairo. 
Then came Suleijnan — that is, Solomon — the Lawgiver, who 
reigned from 1520 to 1566, and was one of the greatest of 
the Sultans. It was in his time that Francis of France made 
alliance with the Turks against the Empire. Under him 
the Ottomans made great conquests. In 1521 he took 
Belgrade; in 1522 the Knights of Saint John were driven 
out of the island of Rhodes, after which the Emperor Charles 
gave them the isle of Malta, which they successfully de- 
fended against the Turks in a great siege in 1565. But 
meanwhile Suleiman conquered a large part of Hungary, 
In i^id Lewis the Second^ King of Hungary, was killed at the 



268 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 



battle of Mohacs, after which the crown passed in the end, 
though not without a good deal of opposition, to Lewis's 
brother-in-law, Ferdmand Archdnke of Azistria, who was 
afterwards Emperor. But the greater part of the country- 
fell into the hands of the Turks, and Buda became the 
seat of a Turkish Pasha. The Hungarian Crown has. ever 
since been held by the Archdukes of Austria, It was in the 
course of these Hungarian wars that Suleiman made his 
way into Germany, and besieged Viemia. He had also 
wars with the Empire in other parts, as along the coast 
of Africa, where the Emperor at one time took Tunis. 
And in 1543 the Turkish fleet was actually brought by the 
Most Christian King into the waters of Italy and Provence, 
where Nizza or Nice was in vain besieged by the Maho- 
metans. Suleiman was the last of the great hne of Sultans 
who had raised the Ottom^ans to such power. After his 
death, though the Turks still made some conquests, they no 
longer threatened the whole world as they had done before. 
In the reign of the next Sultan, Selim, the Turks gained the 
island of Cyprus and lost the battle of Lepaiito j and from 
this time they had constant wars with the Persians to the 
east, and with the Poles and with the Emperors, in their 
character of Kings of Hungary, to the north. 

23. The Thirty Years' War. — We now come to the great 
war which took up all the later years of this period, which 
had Germany for its centre, but in which most of the nations 
of Europe had more or less share. This is called the Thirty 
Years' War. It began mBohemia, where the intolerance of the 
King, the Emperor Ferdinand the Second, provoked a revolt. 
In 1619, just about the time that Ferdinand was crowned Em- 
peror, he was deposed in Bohemia, and the Elector Palatine 
Frederick, a Protestant Prince, was elected in his place. It 
was like the old wars of the Hussites beginning again. The 
next year Frederick was driven out of Bohemia, and he pre- 



xiii.] THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 269 

sently lost his own dominions as well. Meanwhile, at the 
other end of Ferdinand's dominions, the Protestants of 
Hungary revolted, and for a while turned him out of that 
kingdom also. But the great scene of the war was Ger- 
many, where it was first of all carried on between the 
Cathohc and Protestant princes within the country; but 
gradually, as the Emperor, Mdth his famous generals 
Tilly and Wallenstein, seemed likely to swallov/ up all 
Germany, other pov/ers began to step in. The first was 
Ch7Hstia7t the Fourth King of Den7nark, who was himself a 
Prince of the Empire for his German dominions. In 1625 he 
became the chief of the Protestant League, but he was soon 
driven out and obliged to make peace. Presently, in 1630, 
a greater power stepped in from the North. This was the 
famous Gustavus Adolphus King ,of Swede}!, who became 
for two years the head of the Protestants, and carried on 
war with wonderful success for a short time till he was killed 
in the battle at Lutzen in 1632. In this war Gustavus 
showed himself one of the greatest leaders that ever com^ 
manded an army. By this time other nations were beginning 
to take part in the war. England never formally joined in 
it,. but there was, as was natural, a strong feeling in Eng- 
land on behalf of the Protestant cause, all the more so as 
Frederick's wife Elizabeth was a daughter of James the First, 
and many Englishmen and Scotsmen served in the Swedish 
army. France too, under Cardinal Richelieu, began to 
meddle, first making a treaty with Gustavus and helping him 
with money, and afterwards, in 1635, joining openly in the war. 
Richelieu, just like Francis the First, though he oppressed 
the Protestants in France, did not scruple to make a league 
with the Protestants in Germany and with the Protestant 
powers of Sweden and Holland, in a war which had begun 
as a war for religious liberty in Bohemia and Germany. 
From this it now changed into a war for the aggrandizement 



270 THE GREA TNESS OF SPAIN. [ciiA?. 

of France, all the more so as most of the Protestant 
States of Germany made peace with the Emperor in 1635. 
Meanwhile the Emperor Ferdinand died in 1637, and was 
succeeded by his son Ferdinand the Third, The war 
went on for a while in most parts of Europe with various 
success, the chief leader in Germany on the Protestant 
side being Duke Bernhard of Weimar. In 1642 the great 
minister of France, Cardinal Richelieu, died, and his power 
passed to another Cardinal, Mazarin. In 1643 Lewis the 
Thirteenth died, and then began the long reign of Lewis 
the Fourteenth^ who was only five years old when he came 
to the crown. Thus the latter part of the war went on 
under a different Emperor and different sovereigns both 
of France and of Sweden from those under whom it had 
begun. In this latter part of the war the French arms, 
under their great leaders Turenne and the Prince of Cond^, 
began to be decidedly successful. At last, after long nego- 
tiations, peace was made in 1648. 

24. The Peace of Westphalia. — The peace which was 
now made, which is known as the Peace of Westphalia, 
made some important changes in Europe. In Germany the 
two religions were put quite on a level, but the country had 
been utterly ruined by the long war, and whatever traces 
were left either of authority in the Empire or of freedom in 
the people quite died out. From this time Germany long 
remained a mere lax confederation of petty despotisms and 
oligarchies, with hardly any national feeling. Its boundaries 
too were cut short in various ways. The independence of 
the two free Confederations at the two ends of the Empire, 
those of Switzerland 2.vA \^i& United Provijices^ which had 
long been practically cut off from the Empire, was now 
formally acknowledged. And, what was far more important, 
the two foreign kingdoms which had had the chief share in 
the war, France and Sweden, obtained possessions within <he 



xni.] PEACE OF WESTPHALIA. 271 

Empire, and moreover, as gtcarantoi^s or sureties of the peace, 
they obtained a general right of meddhng in its affairs. 
Sweden received territories in northern Germany, both on 
the Baltic and on the Ocean, part of Fomerania,' tht city of 
Wis7nar, and the Bishopricks of Vej^den and Bremen. The 
free Hanseatic city of Bremen remained independent, as 
well as Liibeck and Hamburg j but these were now the only 
remnants of the famous Ha7tseatic Leagite which had once 
been so great. But for these possessions the Kings of Sweden 
became Princes of the Empi7'e, like the Kings of Denmark 
and Hungary, the Elector of Brandenburg, and any other 
princes who had dominions both in the Empire and out 
of it. But the territories which were given to Frajice were 
cut off from the Empire altogether. The right of France 
to the Three Lotharingian Bishopricks, which had been 
seized nearly a hundred years before, was now formally 
acknowledged, and, besides this, the possessions and rights 
of the House of Austria in Elsass, the German land between 
the Rhine and the Vosges, called in France Alsace, were 
given to France. The free city of Strassbu7g and other 
places in Elsass still remained independent, but the whole 
of South Germany now lay open to France. This was the 
greatest advance that France had yet made at the expense 
of the Empire. Within Germany itself the Elector of Brati- 
denbuTg also received a large increase of territory. The war 
in Germany was now over, but the war between France and 
Spain still went on, till 1659. Then France gained Roussillon, 
and a few places in Lorraine and the Netherlands, and Dim- 
/^zV^ was given to England, much as England had at other 
times held Calais and Boulogne and afterwards Gibraltar. 
In the next year Lewis the Fourteenth seized the little 
principality of Orange, but this was afterwards given back. 

25. European Settlements in the East.— We have now 
come to the time when European History spreads itself 



272 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

beyond Europe itself and those parts of Asia and Africa 
which had immediate dealings with Em-ope. In the last years 
of the fifteenth century new worlds were opened, both in 
the East and in the West, and gradually all those European 
nations which had any power by sea began to trade, to 
conquer, and to make settlements, in parts of the world 
which before were never heard of. In this way Englaytd, 
France, Spain, Porhigal, and Holland have all, like the old 
Greek commonwealths, planted colonies in various parts of 
the world. But there has been difference between the ways 
of colonizing in the two times. An old Greek colony was an 
independent state from the beginning, owing a certain respect 
to the mother city, but in no ways subject to it ; but the 
colonies planted by European kingdoms have been looked 
on as parts of the dominions of the mother country and have 
been held as dependent provinces. The colonists therefore, 
when they have got strong enough, have commonly thrown 
off the yoke of the mother country, and have made themselves 
into independent states. Then again we may make some 
distinctions among the different kinds of colonies. In some 
places the European settlers have gradually killed or driven 
'd'ut the native inhabitants, much as the English did with the 
Welsh v/hen they first came into Britain. This has been the 
case with most of the colonies of England. The English 
settlers have often been largely mixed with settlers of 
other European nations, and even with slaves from other 
lands, but they have hardly mixed at all with the natives. 
In other cases, as has happened in most of the colonies 
of Spain, the Europeans and the natives have mixed a 
great deal, and things have been somewhat as they were in 
the time of the conquests of Rome ; that is to say, large 
bodies of men speak Spanish who are not Spaniards 
by blood. Then there is a third class of European 
possessions in distant lands, where Europeans bear rule 



2Cni.] EUROPEAN COLONIES. 273 

over the natives, but neither drive them out nor mix with 
them, and indeed cannot be strictly said to settle or colonize 
at all. Such is the great dominion of England in India, 
which is something quite different from her colonies in 
America, Africa, and Australia. Possessions of both sorts 
began in the times v/ith which we have now to do. The 
colonies strictly so called were chiefly planted in America, 
while dominions of the other kind were chiefly gained in the 
distant parts of Asia and Africa. The first European state 
which began this course of distant dominion was Portugal j 
of this we have seen the beginning in the time of Don- 
Henry. Before the end of the fifteenth century Portugal 
had made a great number of settlements along the west 
coast of Africa as far south as the Equator. Then, when 
Vasco de Gama found out the passage to India round the 
Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese carried on their dis- 
coveries and settlements along the eastern coast of Africa, 
along the coast of the Persian Gulf, and on into Southern 
India and into the peninsulas and islands beyond India. This 
quite changed the course of trade with India and the far East 
generally. Hitherto trade had gone by way oi Alexandria 
and Venice ; now it went by the longer but easier way round 
the Cape. Throughout the sixteenth century the Portu- 
guese had a far greater Eastern dominion than any other 
European power ; indeed they could hardly be said to 
have any European rivals in Asia at all. The Spaniards 
held only the Philippine Islands, and the settlements of 
the English and Dutch and other nations did not begin 
till the seventeenth century. Russia indeed, after she 
had overthrown the Tartar dominion, went on to win a 
vast territory in Northern Asia, the great land of Siberia. 
But this was not gained by sea ; it was the mere exten- 
sion of European Russia by land to the east, and the cold, 
and profitless country of Siberia could never be compared 

T 



274 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

with the rich possessions of other European nations in Asia 
and Africa. 

26. Discovery of America. — But the land of European 
colonization, as distinguished from mere dominion, the land 
in which European settlers have grown up into independent 
nations, was the New World, America. It was in the last 
years of the fifteenth century that this New World began 
to be opened to the men of the old. It has been thought 
that the old Northmen who settled in Iceland touched 
on some parts of the coasts of North America, and it is 
quite certain that they made a settlement in Greenlandy 
which lasted till the fourteenth century. But, if they ever 
found out any of the lands in which the great Spanish and 
English colonies were afterwards planted, they certainly 
made no settlements in them of their own. The New World 
was first found out in 1492 by Christopher Columbus, a 
Genoese in the service of Ferdinand and Isabella, who was 
not seeking a world to the west, but, now that the earth was 
known to be round, was trying to find a westward road to 
India. Thence the lands which he first discovered came to 
be called the West Indies. These were the islands in the 
Guif of Mexico, and one of the first of those on which he 
landed he called Hispaniola^ or New Spain. It is also 
called Saint Doniijigo or Hayti. But Columbus did not 
land on the continent till 1498, and before that time Sebas- 
tian Cabot, a Venetian in the service of Henry the Seventh 
of England, had made his way to the mainland of North 
America much further to the north. Thus America was 
discovered by citizens of the maritime commonwealths of 
Italy, but acting, not in the service of their own cities, whose 
fleets never got beyond the Mediterranean, but of the Kings 
who commanded the Ocean. This marks how the course 
of trade and of dominion was now changing. And the new 
continent took its name of A?nerica from a third Italian, 



Xtii.J DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 275 

Amerigo Vespucci, who at one time was thought to have 
reached the mainland before Columbus. He too was in the 
service of Spain : thus it was that, though Italy had no part 
in the discovery of America, yet Italians had the chief 
part in it. 

27. The Spanish Colonies. — Thus the New World was 
found out, and all Europeans then held that they had a per- 
fect right to seize upon any countries beyond the bounds 
of Christendom, and to do pretty much as they pleased 
with the people. The Spaniards in this way conquered the 
rich countries of Mexico and Peru, where they found gold, 
much as in old times the Phoenicians had found gold in 
Spain itself. Those countries had reached a high, degree 
of civilization and regular government without any dealings 
with the civilized nations of Europe or Asia. And they were 
without many things, such as iron, horses, and the use of 
alphabetic writing, without which no Christian or Mahometan 
country would have thought it possible to get on. They were 
of course heathens, and the idolatry of the Mexicans was of 
a specially horrible and bloody kind. The Spaniards dealt 
with the natives in a way not unlike that in which the first 
Saracens had dealt with Christians and heathens, mixing up 
the notions of conquest and conversion in a strange way. 
But it is certain that no Mahometans ever treated their Chris- 
tian subjects so badly as the Spaniards did the natives in 
America. At last, when it was found that they could not do the 
hard work of the mines, negro slaves from Africa were brought 
in to work in their place. The Portuguese in their African 
settlements had made many negro slaves, and thus the slavery 
of the black man in the New World began, which went on 
for a long time in all the European colonies, and which 
still goes on in Brazil and the Spanish Islands. And 
thus too began, what was yet worse than slavery itself, the 
trade in slaves, the stealing and bringing them over from 

T 2 



276 THE GREATNESS OF SPAIN. [chap. 

Africa, vv^hich is now forbidden by all civilized nations. The 
great Spanish dominion in America now began. Mexico 
was conquered by Hernando Cortes between 15 19 and 1521, 
and Peru by Francisco Pizarro between 1532 -and 1536. 
And, shameful as was the greediness and cruelty shown by 
the Spaniards, there was something very wonderful in the 
overthrow of such great powers by such small bodies of men. 
But a wide difference must be made between the conquest of 
Mexico and that of Peru. For Cortez, though he did several 
very cruel deeds, really tried to convert and civilize the 
countries which he conquered, while Pizarro seems to have 
had no objects of this kind. Thus began the great Spanish 
dominion in America, which has grown up into several in- 
dependent nations speaking the Spanish tongue. 

28. French, English, and other Colonies. — The next people 
after the Spaniards who began to settle in North America 
were the French^ and the next were the Fiiglish^ and the 
settlements of both nations had a good deal to do with the 
religious dissensions at home. The first attempt at a French 
settlement was made by Huguenots in 1562, in the land to 
which they gave the name of Caroli7ia, but it was not till 
1607 that any lasting French settlements were made in 
America. From that time the French gradually occupied, 
or laid claim to, a vast territory in North America, taking 
in a great deal of the western part of the present United 
States and of the lands to the north of them. These were 
called Canada and Lotdsiana, but in a much wider sense 
than those names bear now. These settlements of the 
French in North America have all passed either to Eng- 
land or to the United States, but some of their settle- 
ments in the West Indies and their small possessions 
in South America at Cayenn-e remain French still. The 
English sailors, Gilbe?'t, Drake, and others, kept making 
discoveries and waging war with the Spaniards during the 



xin.] COLONIES IN AMERICA. 277 

whole reign of Elizabeth, and in 1585 Sir Walter Raleigh 
tried to begin the colony of Virginia, but it was not really 
settled till 1606. This was the beginning of the English 
colonies in North America, which have grown up into the 
United States. New England was next colonized, and 
afterwards Maryland: both of these were largely peopled by 
those men in England who were dissatisfied with the state of 
rehgion, and who were often persecuted for not conforming to 
the law in such matters. For no one as yet thought of allow- 
ing perfect freedom to all religions ; each country, Catholic 
or Protestant or whatever it was, punished with penalties, 
greater or less, all those who did not conform to the established 
religion. So men tried to get more freedom by settling in 
distant lands. Thus the French Huguenots tried to settle 
in America, and thus, amongst the English colonies. New 
England was largely peopled by Puritans, that is, zealous 
Protestants who thought that reform in the Church of 
England had not gone far enough; and Maryland was largely 
settled by Roman Catholics, who followed the Pope and the 
Council of Trent, and held that the Church of England had 
gone wrong by having any Reformation at all. The English 
colonies in America were all held to be parts of the English 
dominions ; but most of them had free constitutions, and 
they were able to do much as they pleased in their own 
local affairs. Meanwhile the Dutch, who, having freed 
themselves from Spain, were fast driving the Portuguese 
out of the commerce of the East Indies, settled in North 
America also, and founded a colony called New Netherlana 
between Maryland and New England. In South America, 
besides the French, the English and Dutch had some small 
possessions. But the great South American power besides 
Spain was Portugal. For the Portuguese founded the great 
colony of Brazil, after some opposition from the Enghsh, 
Dutch, and French. The Portuguese began to settle in 



278 THE G.REA TNESS OF SPAIN. [chap, 

those parts about- 1531, and after 1660 they had Brazil 
wholly to themselves. 

29. Learning, Art, and Science. — All this time the mind 
of man was making great progress in all parts. The revival 
of learning in the fifteenth century did something to check 
original genius in Italy, for all men took once more to writing" 
in Latin. But in the sixteenth century there were again great 
Italian writers both in prose and verse, and the time from the 
later part of the fifteenth century till that of the sixteenth was 
the great time of Italian painting. Learning also spread 
through all parts of the West, and there were great scholars 
in most countries, in none more than in the Uiiited Provinces 
after they had won their freedom. There too men began to 
give special heed to the Law of Nations, that is to the rules by 
which different countries hold themselves to be bound in their 
dealings with one another. In this time also men began to 
have truer notions on matters of physical science ; to learn^ 
for instance, that the earth goes round the sun, instead of 
the sun going round tlie earth. In religious matters too the 
endless controversies, both between the Roman Catholics and 
the Protestants and between the different classes of Protest- 
ants, brought out a great number of learned and zealous 
theological writers on all sides. Nor was this only a time of 
learning, but also of original genius, for, besides Italy, it was 
the age of the greatest poets of England, Spain, and Portugal. 
France perhaps lagged a little behind in poetry, but she had 
many good writers in prose. Generally throughout Europe, 
men were taking to their own languages for poetry and 
history, though some great histories were s-till written in 
Latin, and Latin wa.s still the common language of learning 
and science. Men also began to learn more of each other's 
languages, a-nd the Italian language especially was much 
admired and studied in other countries. In Germany the 
standard of the language was fixed by Luther^ s translation 



XIII.] LEARNING AND LITERA TURE. 279 

of the Bible, which had this effect, that the High-Dutch in 
which he wrote it became the received language of Ger- 
many, while the Low-Dutch^ though the natural tongue of 
so large a part of the country, came to be looked down on 
as a mere vulgar dialect. But, after the wretched times of the 
Thirty Years' War, both learning and native literature sadly 
went down. Altogether, the time from the latter years of 
the fifteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth was 
one of the most fertile times, both in great scholars and in 
great writers in their own tongues, but it would be endless to 
try to set their names down here. It will be better done in 
the histories of their particular countries. 

30. Summary. — In this period we see ih^Einpire practically 
come to an end. In strictness there was no Emperor after 
Charles the Fifth, and the Imperial title no longer carried 
with it any authority in Italy, and not much in Germany. 
i t had become little more than a title of honour in one branch 
Ox' the House of Austria, while the greatest power in Europe 
b;ad reaily passed away to the other branch of the House of 
Awstria which held Spain and its dependent states. At the 
beginning of the period Spain was decidedly in the first 
place, but, before the end of it, the Spanish power greatly 
lessened, and France, by the result of the Thirty Years' 
War, became the leading power instead of Spain. Italy 
i~.ank into a mere dependency of Spain, except so far as 
Venice still fought the battles of Christendom against the 
Turks. Germcmy, after taking the lead in the Reformation^ 
was utterly ruined and divided by the Thirty Years' War. 
Switzerland held a high position at the beginning of the 
period, and the dominion of its Cantons in the Romance lands 
began. But before the end of the period the reputation of 
the Confederates greatly sunk through the practice of mer- 
cenary service. Hungary had sunk, partly into a Turkish 
province, partly into a possession of the House of Austria. 



28o THE GREA TNESS OF SPAIN. [ch. xiil 

On the other hand, several old powers greatly advanced and 
some new ones came into being. Engla^id and Scotland, 
though not yet united into one kingdom, became one power 
as regards other nations. Sweden suddenly grew into a first- 
class power. Polajid both gained and lost, but Russia, her 
neighbour to the East, grew in a manner which, in her 
own part of the world, might almost be set against the 
growth of Spain in the West. But she was not as yet of any 
importance in European affairs generally. The power of the 
Turks rose to its height, but it met with its first great check 
and began to go down. Savoy ^ losing territory to the north 
of the Alps, gained territory to the south, and thus had its 
course marked out for it as an Italian power. The revolt of 
the Netherlands against Spain gave birth to the new com- 
monwealth of the United Proviitces, which at once rose to 
the rank of a great -power. The treaty of Poland with the 
Teutonic Knights gave birth to the new power of P?^ussia, 
though Prussia did not become great till the United Pro- 
vinces had begun to go down again. And, besides these 
shiftings of territory and risings and fallings of various 
powers, we have in this period the Reformatiofi and all its 
results, and we have the great stirring of men's minds which 
partly caused it and partly followed it. And we have the 
discovery of New Worlds both in the East and in the West, 
and the conquests and settlements of all the seafaring 
powers of Europe in those distant lands. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE GREATNESS OF FRANCE. 

Growth of the power of France; accession of Lewis the Fourteenth ; 
his character and absolute dominion {i)— his aggressions on Spain 
and the United Provinces ; league against France ; defence of the 
United Provinces by William of Orange (l )~Peace of Mimwegen ; 
acquisitions of France [i)— Lewis at the height of his power; 
seizure of Scrassburg {2)— devastation of the Palatinate; second 
league against Leivis ; Peace of Ryszvick {2)~sc hemes for the 
partition of the Spanish dominions ; War of the Spanish Sue-* 
cession (3) — Lewis' persecution of the Protestants ; losses of France 
by his reign, {1)— England under the Parliament and the Pro- 
tectorate ; her greatness under Cro??iwell ; wars with the United 
Provinces [a)— degradation of England under Charles and James 
the Second ; wars zvith the United Provinces ; election of William 
of Orange {^)— different effects of the Revolution in England, 
Scotland, and Ireland ; union of the Kingdoms of England and 
Scotland {l)— share of Great Britain in 'the wars with France ; 
accession of the Hanoverian dynasty {^)~ reign of the Fmperor 
Leopold; growth of Brandenburg jmder the Great Elector; 
Prussia becomes a ki7tgdom {6)~affairs of Hungary ; siege of 
Vienna by the Turks ; the Hmgarian Crown becomes hereditary ; 
Peace of Carlowit-z ; reigns of Joseph the First and Charles the 
Sixth; advance of the Austrian power; Peace of Passarowitz 
[6)— decay of the Spanish power {'j)— affairs of Italy ; advance 
of Savoy {%)—wars of Venice with the Turk's ; war of Candia ; 
conquest and loss of Peloponnesos {())— great position of the United^ 
Provinces; changes in their form of governtnent ; Stadholdership 
of William the Third {10)— greatest extent of the power of 
Sweden ; Denmark and Sweden become absolute monarchies (ii) 



282 THE GREA TNESS OF FRANCE. [chap. 

exploits of Charles the Twelfth (ll) — loss of territory and lessenijtg 
of the 7-oyal poixier in Szveden ; comparison of Sweden and Savoy 
(ll) — decline of Poland ; reigns of fohn Sobieski; and Augustus 
the Strong (12) — decline of the power of the Turks ; the tribute of 
children no longer levied ; advance of the subject nations (13) — 
English and Dutch settlements in Itidia ; beginning of the East 
India Company (14) — the Mogul Emperors {14) — English settle- 
ments in Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta (14) — English settle- 
ments in North America; annexatioits of the Swedish and 
Dutch colonies (15) — Fre7tch colonization in Lotiisiana {15) — 
Sumi7iary (16). 

I. Conquests of Lewis the Fourteenth. — We have now 
come to the time when Frajzce takes the same place among the 
nations of Europe which had for a while been held by Spain, 
and becomes in the like sort the object of fear to most other 
nations. We have seen that the power of France was con- 
firmed^ as against the Empire, by the Peace of Westphalia in 
1648, and, as against Spain, by the Peace of the Pyrenees 
in 1659. Thus the Hoiise of Bourbon had humbled both 
branches of the House of Austria. The reigning King was 
now Lewis the Fourteenth, who came to the crown as a child 
in 1643, and reigned seventy-two years, till 171 5. The 
earlier part of his reign was a time of great confusion and 
rebelhon, but from the time of his taking the government 
on himself, on the death of Cai'dinal Mazari7i in 1661, 
till the end of his long reign, no King of any country 
ever kept things more wholly in his own hands. He was 
served by very able ministers and generals, but his own will 
gave the law to France, and thereby to a great part of 
Europe. His common saying was, *' I am the State ;" and 
he made himself so : for, besides greatly advancing the power 
of France in Europe, he greatly advanced the royal authority 
in France. The States- General were never summoned; he 
humbled the Parliament of Par is ^ the chief court of law, which 



XIV.] LEWIS THE FOURTEENTH. 283 

had hitherto put some check on the King's will ; in short he 
made France still more thoroughly an absolute monarchy 
than it was before. He married Maria Theresa, an Infa-nta 
or Princess of Spain, and at the marriage all rights to any 
part of the Spanish dominions which might thus pass to him- 
self or his children were solemnly given up. Notwithstand- 
ing this, when PhiHp the Fourth of Spain died, in 1665, Lewis 
gave out that by an old law of the Netherlands certain parts 
of those provinces ought to pass to his Queen rather than to 
the next King, Charles the Second. This frightened the 
United Provinces, who feared that the claim would extend 
to them. Presently, in 1667, he invaded the Netherlands, 
and in the next year he, for the first time, conquered the 
County of Burgtmdy, now called Franche Comte, which still 
belonged to Spain, and the Imperial city of Besancon, which 
had now become a part of the County. These last conquests 
he gave up the same year by a treaty at Aachen, but he kept 
his conquests in the Netherlands. Next, in 1672, he attacked 
the United Provinces, and, to their great shame, he had 
both England and several German princes on his side. But 
after a while the English Parliament compelled the King, 
Charles the Secoiid, to make peace. The war now became 
general ; the Emperor Leopold and King Charles of Spain 
made a league with the United Provinces, so strangely had 
things turned about since they first threw off the Spanish yoke. 
The Empire as a body was neutral, but some of the Ger- 
man Princes, among them the G7'eat Elector of Brandenburg^ 
Frederick Wiiliavi, joined the league against France ; so did 
Denmark, v/hile Sweden took the French side, so that there 
was a kind of separate war going on in the North. It was 
in this war that William Prince of Orange, the descendant 
of William the Silent, and who was afterwards King of 
England, first made himself famous. At last peace was 
tnade at Nimwegen in i»678 and 1679, ).y which France kept 



284 THE GREATNESS OF FRANCE. [chap. 

most of her new conquests in the Spanish Netherlands, with 
the County of Bti7'gundy and the city of Besan^on, and some 
Imperial towns in ^^/j^j-j- which had not been given up by 
the Peace of Westphaha. In all this war Lewis had been 
spreading his influence far and wide, and making alliances 
everywhere. Just as other Kings of France had done, 
though he was a cruel persecutor of the Protestants in 
France, he helped the Hungarian Protestants against their 
King the Emperor, and even allied himself with the Turks, 
as Francis the First had done. 

2. Lewis the Fourteenth and William of Orange.— Lewis 
was now at the height of his power, and his flatterers called 
him Lewis the Great. But, even after these great successes, 
he never could keep quiet : he went on annexing small places 
in Elsass, and at last, in 1681, he seized on the free Imperial 
city of Strasshirg in time of peace. Then he began to 
meddle in Italy, and, among other things, he picked a quarrel 
with the commonwealth of Genoa, bombarded the city, and 
made the Doge come and ask humbly for peace. More smaller 
wars with Spain followed, and in 1688 Lewis SQ\zedi Avigncn, 
which belonged to the Pope, and directly afterwards he 
began a new war, because he could not get a candidate of his 
own chosen to the Archbishoprick oi Koln. But by this time 
one very important change had taken place. James the Second 
of England, who, like his brother Charles, had been in the 
pay of Lewis, had been driven out, and his nephew and son- 
in-law William Prtfice of Orange, the Stadholder of the 
United Provinces, had been chosen King of England in his 
stead. England was now therefore against France, and King 
William was the very soul of the general league called the 
Grand Alliance, which was now made to keep Lewis from 
bringing all Europe under his yoke. But William found it 
hard to manage many of his allies, as both Spain and the 
German princes were often anxious to throw the burthen of 



XIV.] WILLIAM OF ORANGE, 285 



the wax on England and the United Provinces, and towards 
the end of the war Lewis contrived to detach the Duke of 
Savoy ivom the Alliance. This war went on almost every- 
where at once. The thing by which it is best remembered 
is the cruel ravaging of the dominions of the Elector 
Palatine by Lewis's orders at the beginning of the war. 
Many battles were fought and towns taken on both sides, 
especially in the Netherlands ; and at last peace was made 
at Ryswick, by which most of the conquests on both sides 
v/ere restored. France especially gave up the places which 
had been seized in Germany, except the great city of Strass- 
burg, which she was allowed to keep. 

3. War of the Spanish Succession. — Another war began 
in 1700, on the death of Charles the Second of Spain. This 
is called the War of the Spanish Succession. As Charles 
had no children, there was a great question as to who should 
succeed to his dominions, and several treaties had been made 
between England and the United Provinces^ France, and the 
Empire, to hinder the whole of the Spanish dominions from 
being any longer united. By the last treaty they were to 
be divided among the several claimants, and the Crown of 
Spain itself was to pass to the Archdiike Charles of Austria^ 
the son of the Emperor Leopold. But, when King Charles 
of Spain died, it was found that he had left the whole of 
his dominions to Philip of Anjou, the grandson of the King 
of France. Philip the Fifth therefore succeeded to the Crown 
of Spain. But war broke out in 1701 : th.Q Emperor, England, 
the United Provinces, Brandenburg or Prussia (whichever 
we are now to call it), and afterwards Savoy, all took part in 
it. The war went on in all parts with various success till 
171 3 and 1 7 14, when it was ended by the Treaties of Utrecht 
and Rastadt., This was the war in, which the Duke of 
Marlborough carried on his great campaigns in the Nether- 
lands, and in which England got possession of Gibraltar. 



286 THE GREA TNESS OF FRANCE. [chap. 

By these treaties the great Spanish monarchy was divided, 
in a way of which we shall say more when we come to the 
several countries which were concerned in the division. But 
Philip kept Spain and the Indies, that is the distant 
possessions of Spain in America and elsewhere, so that 
Lewis succeeded so far that he had established his grandson 
on the throne of Spain. But in this last war he had made 
no such conquests for his own kingdom as he had made 
in his earlier wars. And these constant wars, and his 
despotic government at home, had greatly weakened and 
impoverished his kingdom. It was weakened above all by 
Lewis's persecutions of the Protestants. In 1685 he revoked 
the Edict of Nantes^ which had been granted in their 
favour by Henry the Fourth. A most cruel persecution 
followed, chiefly in the South, where the Protestants were 
most numerous. This was a great blow for France, as 
crowds of skilful and industrious men left the country, and 
carried their skill to England and elsewhere. But as far as 
mere military glory went, there had as yet been no time 
when France had had so large a share of it as during the 
reign of Lewis the Fourteenth. 

4. England. — It marks the great position which France held 
during this time, that, in telling the history of France, we have 
to tell so large a part of all the countries at least in the West 
of Europe. But this was a most important time, both in 
England and in other countries. From the execution of 
Charles the First in 1 649 to the Restoration of his son Charles 
the Second m.\(^^o^ England y\'2.s z. commonv/ealth. During 
the first years after the King's death, the Long Parliament, 
which had overthrown him, kept the government in its own 
hands. But in 1653 the great general of the Parliament, 
Oliver Cro?7Zwelly took on himself the chief power by the title 
of Lord Protector, for, like Csesar at Rome, he did not dare to 
call himself King. He kept his power till his death in 1658, 



XIV.] THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH. 287 

and then came a time of confusion till the Restoi'-ation of 
Charles the Second. Under the government of the I'arlia- 
ment and of the Protector England rose again to the place, 
or more than the place, in Europe which she had held 
under Elizabeth, and which she had lost under the first two 
Stewart Kings. Scotland, where Charles the Second had 
been acknowledged King after his father's death, was now 
united with England. Ireland was conquered as it had 
never been conquered before. A war was waged with the 
United Provinces, in which the great admirals of the two 
commonwealths, Blake on the English side, and De Rtiyter 
and Van Tronip on the Dutch, v/on victories over each other. 
The Island of Jamaica in the West Indies was won from 
Spai7ij the Protector interfered to protect the Protestants in 
Savoy, who were persecuted by their Duke, and he made 
advantageous treaties with most of the powers of Europe. 
All this was changed after Charles the Second came to the 
Crown, for he had no care for the honour of the nation, and 
he actually was in the pay of Lewis of France, the secret 
object of their schemes being to set up absolute power a> d 
the Ro-man Catholic religion in England. Charles first mate 
men angry in 1663 by selling Dup,ki7'k to the French Kij g. 
Then followed a war with the l/jtited Provinces from 1664 to 
1667, just at the time when the Plague of Londo7i happered 
in 1665, and the Great Fire in 1666. In this war the Dut'xh 
fleet sailed up the Thames, a thing which no enemy's fleet liad 
done since the old times of the Danes. In this war Lewis 
professed to be on the side of the Dutch, but intrigues -vvere 
going on between him and Charles. Though in 1668 a Tfiple 
Alliance was concluded between England, Sweden, and the 
United Provi?ices, to check the advance of France, yet, v. -hen 
Lewis invaded Holland in 1672, Charles joined him. and 
another naval war between England and the United Pro- 
vinces followed. Peace nowever was made the next year, 



288 THE GREATNESS OF FRAN-CE. [chap. 

and after a while Mary, the niece of Charles and daughter of 
James Duke of York, was married to her cousin William^ 
Prince of Oraftge. In 1685 James cz-vcie. to the throne. He 
had openly become a Roman Catholic, and his illegal doings 
in favour of those of his own religion at iast obliged him 
to leave the country, and William and Mary were chosen 
King and Queen. 

5. Great Britain. — The effects of the Revolution which 
placed Wilham and Mary on the throne were different in 
the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In 
England the old laws and liberties were restored after a time 
of misgovernment. In Scotland, which at the restoration of 
Charles the Second had again become a separate kingdom, 
the Stewart Kings had tried in vain to force the rites and 
government of the English Church on a people who preferred 
a system departing further from that of Rome. William 
and Mary were therefore gladly chosen in Scotland, and the 
Presbyterian Church was finally established. But in Ireland, 
where the mass of the people were Roman Catholics, the 
cause of James was maintained for a while. But in the end 
Ireland was more thoroughly conquered than ever, and the 
native Roman Catholic inhabitants were ground down for a 
long while under the dominion of the Protestant English. 
Thus the Scots gained their liberty and the establishment of 
their own religion by the same revolution which enslaved Ire- 
land, In 1707, in the reign of Queen Anne, who succeeded 
William, j5"/z^/(2;2('/ and ^'^-^^//^^^z^^were joined together into one 
kingdom, with one Parliament, called the Kingdom of Great 
Britain, Ireland remaining a separate and dependent king- 
dom. Meanwhile, after the election of V*^illiam and Mary, 
now that the same man was King of England and Stad- 
holder of the United Provinces, England took a leading part, 
as we have already said, in the last two v/ars against Lewis. 
By the Treaty of Utrecht, England, or we should now rathei 



XIV.] AFFAIRS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 289 

say Great Britain, gained the fortress of Gibraltar, which she 
has kept ever since, and the island of Minorca. This was 
the Enghsh share in the partition of the Spanish monarchy, 
and it was their first possession in the Mediterranean. Tan- 
gier had been an Enghsh possession during the reign of 
Charles the Second, but Tangier lies outside the Strait. In 
all these ways England became more mixed up with con- 
tinental affairs than she had been before, and this was 
still more the case when, just before the death of Lewis the 
Fourteenth, the Crown of Great Britain passed to a foreign 
prince who was actually a reigning sovereign, which William 
was not, except in his little principality of Orange. This was 
George Elector of Hanover^ a descendant of James the First 
in the female line, who, as neither William nor Anne left any 
children, was chosen by Parliament to succeed, as being the 
next Protestant heir. Thus England had again, after so 
many years, a King who could not speak English. 

6. Germany and Hungary. — We have seen how utterly 
the power of the Emperors came to an end by the Peace of 
Westphalia ; and the next Emperor, Leopold, who succeeded 
Ferdinand the Third in 1658 and reigned till 1705, was not a 
man likely to set it up again. The German princes now did 
much as they pleased, and many of them did not scruple 
to become the allies of Lewis. In fact, in a great part 
of Germany the King of France was much more the real 
head than the Emperor. The most famous German 
•prince of this time was the Great Elector of Brandenburg^ 
Frederick William, who has been already spoken of as 
taking a part in the war against Lewis. It was under 
him that the House of Hohenzolle?'n, as the family of the 
Electors of Brandenburg and Kings of Prussia is called, 
began to rise to greatness. He inherited and gained 
several fresh territories in Germany, and, as we have 
seen, he made his Dtichy of Prussia independent of Poland. 

U 



290 THE GREA TNESS OF FRANCE. [chap. 

His son Frederick, the first King of Prussia^ took a share 
against France in the "War of the Spanish Succession ; he 
also inherited a possession at a great distance, namely the 
Principality of Neufchdtel in the old Kingdom of Bur- 
gundy. This small state was in close alliance with the 
Canton of Bern, and it has since become a part .of Switzer- 
land. The next King, Frederick lVillia?n the Second, who 
succeeded in 17 13, received some further additions to his ter- 
ritories in Western Germany by the Peace of Utrecht. Thus 
Prussia, as it must now be called rather than Brandeitmtrg, 
was advancing step by step to the position of a great power 
in Europe. The Emperor Leopold meanwhile, besides the 
wars with France, had much to do in his kingdom of Hun- 
gary, both with the wars against the Turks and with the 
revolts of the Hungarians themselves, who were stirred up by 
his cruel persecutions of the Protestants. The Protestants 
did not scruple to join with the Turks, and we can hardly 
wonder at them ; for the Christian subjects of a Mahometan 
power, though they are dealt with as an inferior people, 
are not denied the free exercise of their religion. In 1683 
the Turks besieged Vienna, which was delivered by John 
Sobieski, King of Polajtd, and Charles Duke of Lorraine. 
After this the war went on, and the Turks were gradually 
driven out of the part of Hungary which they held, and peace 
was made at Carlowitz in 1699. ^^ "^^ midst of all this the 
Crown of Hungary, which, though it had been so long in the 
Austrian family, was still by law elective, was made hereditary 
in 1687. Leopold then gave up the kingdom to his son 
Joseph, vAio in 1690 was chosen King of the Romans, and 
succeeded his father in 1705. He took a leading part in all the 
affairs of Europe during his time. The war with France went 
on, and so did the civil wars in Hungary, till 171 1, after which 
we hear of no more revolts for a long while. In that year 
Joseph died, and was succeeded by Charles the Sixth. He i1 



XIV.] AUSTRIA AND TURKEY. 291 

was whom the Alhes had wished to make King of Spain, 
and now the fear of uniting Spain with the dominions of the 
House of Austria helped to indine the AHies to peace. By 
the terms of peace the House of Austria got, as its share 
of Spanish dominions, all that remained of the Spanish 
Netherlands^ the Kingdoms oi Naples and Sardinia^ and the 
Duchy of Milan, except some parts which were given to the 
Duke of Savoy. In 171 5 another war began with the Ttirks, 
v/hich was ended in 1718 by the Peace of Passarowitz, by 
which more territory was won from the Turks, including Bel- 
grade the capital of Servia. Thus the House of Austria at 
this time gained a great increase of territory, but it was all 
'to the advantage of the House of Austria, not at all to that 
of what was still called the Roman Empire. 

7. The Spanish Peninsula. — The history of Spain during 
this time, as far as it concerns us, has pretty well been told 
already. The power which had been so great under Charles 
the Fifth and Philip the Second had now sunk to nothing, 
and Spain was disputed about by other powers without 
asking the consent of its own people. But of the competitors 
for the Spanish Crown the Spaniards certainly preferred 
the French candidate to the Austrian, except in Catalonia^ 
v/here the people took the other side. They had been 
deceived by the French in earlier wars. Portugal during 
this time has hardly any general history. At first it took the 
side of the French, and afterwards that of the allies. And 
we must not forget that, besides the loss of its possessions 
in different parts of Europe, Spain itself suffered dismember- 
ment. For, as we have seen, England got, not only the 
island of Minorca, but also the fortress of Gibraltar on the 
mainland of Spain itself. 

8, Advance of Savoy. — Italy also has very little history 
during these times. From this time onwards we shall find 
both Italy and the Netherlands used as a kind of battle-field 

U2 



292 THE GREA TNESS OF FRANCE. [chap. 

for the wars of other nations. We have seen how, by the 
Treaty of Utrecht^ several parts of Italy were again made to 
change masters, and how, for the first time since Charles the 
Fifth, the Emperor, though we can no longer say the Empire., 
again became an important power in Italy. But there are 
two independent states in Italy, of whose history some account 
must be given. The Hotise of Savoy was steadily making 
its way. From the beginning of the seventeenth century the 
Dukes of Savoy had sought to add to their dominions the 
possessions of the commonwealth of Getioa^ and also what- 
ever they might be able to win in Lombardy., which wa? then 
divided between the commonwealth of Venice and the 
Kings of Spain as Dukes of Milan. Genoa they were not to 
win for a long time, but, by taking a part dexterously, and not 
very scrupulously, in every war, they always contrived to 
gain something by each treaty of peace. Thus Duke Victor 
AinadetLs the Second took a part in both the wars of the 
AlHes against France. He gained in some campaigns and 
lost in others ; he changed sides more than once, but )\q 
gained an increase of territory both by the Peace of 
Ryswick and by the Peace of Utrecht. His gains by this 
last peace were very great, including a part of the Duchy 
of Milan, and, more than this, he became a King. The 
Dukes of Savoy had for a long time claimed to be Kings 
of Cyprus and Jerusalem, but these were mere nominal 
kingdoms, while now Victor Amadeus became real King of 
the Island of Sicily , while the kingdom on the mainland 
went to the Emperor. The Two Sicilies were thus again 
divided, as they had been in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries. The Dukes of Savoy in all this show a marked 
contrast to the other princes of Italy, and the corruption 
which had spread itself over most parts of Italy under the 
Spanish domination had hardly touched their dominions. 
They were thus able to do great things^ and, though their 



XIV.] THE ITALIAN STA TES. 293 



policy as yet was purely selfish^ they were really laying the 
foundation of the power which in our own time has growa 
into the restored Kingdom of Italy. 

9. Wars of Venice. — The other Italian state of which 
some account must be given during this time was the com- 
monwealth of Venice, which was still nobly playing its part as 
the champion of Christendom against the Turks. Cyprus had 
been lost, but the Venetians still kept Crete. But in 1645 the 
Turks attacked the island, and a war in its defence went on 
for twenty-four years. This war, as the greater part of it was 
taken up by the siege of the town of Candia, was commonly 
called the War of Candia. The Venetians were helped, just 
as in the old times of the Crusades, by volunteers and others 
from various parts of Europe, France, Spain, England, 
and Savoy ; but at last, in 1669, Candia could no longer 
hold out, and the whole island passed to the Turks. In 1684 
the Venetians joined the Emperor Leopold and the Poles in 
their war with the Turks, and presently Francesco Morosini, 
who had commanded at Candia, conquered the whole of 
Peloponnesos, and was afterwards elected Doge. It was in 
this war that the Parthenon, the great temple at Athens, 
which had become a church under the Eastern Emperors and 
a powder-magazine under the Turks, was finally broken down 
when Morosini was besieging Athens. Peloponnesos was 
confirmed to Venice in the Peace of Carlowitz in 1699, but 
it was won back by the Turks in 17 15, as well as whatever 
Venice still kept in the East, except the Ionian Islands and 
one or two points on the west coast. In 17 16 the Turks in 
vain tried to take Corfu, but in 17 18 the Emperor Charles 
forsook Venice just when there was a chance of winning 
back Peloponnesos. With the Peace of Passarowitz in that 
year the history of the wars of Venice in the East, which 
had gone on ever since the taking of Constantinople in 
1204, came to an end. 



294 THE GREA TNESS OF FRANCE. [chap. 

10. The United Provinces. — During all this time the 
seven United Provinces^ as what we have already said will 
show, held a much higher position in Europe and the world 
in general than could have been looked for from the extent 
of their territories. And they did this notwithstanding an 
awkward constitution in which each of the states of which 
the Confederation was made up kept nearly all the rights of 
sovereignty. In Holland, which was the leading province of 
the seven, there was- a chief magistrate called a Stadholder, 
who often held the same office in other provinces also. 
This office had passed on for some generations, almost as 
if it had been hereditary, in the family of the Princes of 
Orange. But, when William the Second died in 1650, his 
son Williai7i the Third was not yet born, and the office was 
formally abolished in 1667. At this time the States were 
chiefly led by a famous statesman of Holland, John de Witt, 
but in 1672 there was a revolution ; De Witt and his brother 
ware murdered, and the Prince was appointed Stadholder. 
It was he who carried on the great defence of the Provinces 
against France, but after his death the office of Stadholder 
was again abolished for a long while. 

11. The Northern Kingdoms. — Sweden, like the United 
Provinces, held during all this time a greater position in 
Europe than it was really able to keep. Queen Christina 
abdicated in 1654 ; the wars went on during the time of the 
next King, Charles the Tenth, and in 1660 Cha^des the 
Eleventh concluded the Treaties of Oliva and Copenhagen, 
by which Sweden gained almost all Livoiiia from Poland, 
and obtained from Den7nark all that part of Denmark which 
lay within the northern peninsula, so that Denmark now kept 
on]y Jutland and the islands. Sweden now had greater ter- 
ritories than it had at any time before or since, and in this 
King's reign, in 1682, the royal power was made absolute by 
law. The same had been done in Denmark in 1660, in the 



Siv.] CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 295 

reign of Frederick the Third. Then, in 1697, came the 
famous Charles the Twelfth. He was presently attacked by 
Denmark, Poland, and Russia all at once. He first beat 
the Danes, and then the Russians in the famous battle of 
Narva; Xh-^ri he passed on into Poland, where he deposed 
one King and set up another ; then he passed on into Russia, 
where at last he was defeated at Pultowa, and had to take 
shelter in the Turkish dominions at Bender. There he 
stayed in a sort of captivity for a while, but in 1714. he 
made his way almost alone to Stralsund in his Pomeranian 
dominions, where he was besieged by the forces of Denmark, 
Prussia, and Saxony. In 17 18 he was killed in attacking 
Frederickshall in Norway. His sister Ulrica succeeded 
him. Absolute monarchy was now again abolished, and 
the royal powers were made very small. In 1720 and 1721 
peace was made by Sweden with her various enemies, and 
the Swedish dominions were cut short in all parts. Livonia 
and the neighbouring countries were given up to Russia, 
whose territories now reached to the Baltic. Bremen and 
Vej'den were given up to Hafiover, and part of Swedish Pome- 
rania to Prussia. So of the fruits of the German victories of 
Gustavus Adolphus nothing was left except part of Pomerania 
and the town of Wismo.rj but the Scandinavian territories 
which had been won from Denmark in the last century were 
still kept. Charles the Twelfth had won victories which as- 
tonished the whole world, but he taxed the resources of his 
kingdom beyond its strength, and Sweden since his time has 
never been what it was during the whole of the seventeenth 
century. But, on the other hand, Sweden now reached to 
the extreme south of her own peninsula, and was no longer cut 
off by Denmark from the Western seas. In fact Sweden has 
to some extent, like Savoy, been gaining territory at one end 
and losing it at the other, though the gains have been greatei 
in the case of Savoy and the losses in the case of Sweden. 
12. Russia and Poland. — We need say but little about 



2q6 the GREA TNESS OF FRANCE. [chap. 



the history of Russia in this chapter, because its wonderful 
advances towards the end of this time will come better as a 
connected story in the next chapter. Poland meanwhile had, 
as we have seen, to give up her new territory of Livonia to 
Sweden, and presently, in 1672, she had to give up the border 
province of Podolia to the Turks, and to submit to pay a 
tribute. But in 1674 the Poles chose as their King their 
own famous general, John Sobieski, the same who delivered 
Vienna in 1683. Both before and after he became King, he won 
several victories over the Turks, and got back part of the lost 
territories, and for a time joined to Poland Moldavia and 
Wallachia, the two Danubian principalities of which there 
has been much talk of late years. These conquests were not 
long kept. Sobieski died in 1696, and the Poles did not 
choose a new King for more than a year. Then they chose 
Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony ^ who turned Catholic 
to receive the Crown, since which time the Electors and 
Kings of Saxony have been Catholics, while their people 
have remained Protestant. This King is called Atigustus 
the Stro7tg. He won back the strong town of Kaminiec from 
the Turks, but, having joined the league against Charles 
the Twelfth of Sweden, he was utterly overthrown in 1702. 
Charles called on the Poles to depose Augustus and choose 
a new King ; so in 1704 they chose one of their own nobles, 
Stanislaus Leszczynski. But he reigned no longer than 
Charles could help him, and, after Charles' defeat at Pultowa 
and after a civil war in Poland, Augustus was brought back. 
Poland was now falling very fast from the high place which 
it had once held in Europe. 

13. The Turks. — The chief events in the history of the 
Ttirks have already been told when we spoke of their wars 
with Venice and in Hungary. Though they conquered Crete 
and recovered Peloponnesos^ yet on the whole the power of 
the Ottomans was going down. Some of the Sultans, like 
Mahomet the Fourth, in whose time Vienna was besieged, 



XIV.] POLAND AND TURKEY. 



297 



were men of spirit, and Mahomet sometimes commanded hi? 
own armies, but some were very weak men indeed, and none 
were hke the great series of Sultans who had founded the 
Ottoman dominion. One great reason for the dedine of the 
Ottoman power was that the tribute of children was no longer 
regularly levied on the subject nations. The Janissaries had 
become a kind of hereditary caste, and their old spirit was 
quite gone. In former times all the best servants of the 
Sultans, both in war and peace, had come from among the 
tribute children. Now that the tribute was no longer levied, 
the Sultans had no longer the same succession of able and 
faithful servants, and the subject nations were no longer de- 
prived of the men who were most fitted to be their leaders! 
As long as the tribute was levied, we may say that the subject 
nations could not revolt. As it was, we do not hear of any 
revolts for some time to come, but the subject nations now 
began to gain strength and their masters became weaker. 

14. European Settlements in India.— The English do- 
minion in India began during this time. The great sailors of 
Elizabeth's time had made their way into the Indian seas as 
well as into those of the West, and a systematic trade with 
India, carried on, as was usual in those days, by a Company^ 
began in the times of James the First. The English mer^* 
chants had at first to withstand the opposition of the Dutcl, 
in the islands, and of the Portuguese on the mainland. The 
Dutch had got possession of the Islands called the Spict 
Islands, which form part of the great group of islands which 
He beyond the two peninsulas of India, and in 1623 great 
indignation was caused by what was called the Massacre of 
Amboytia, when several Englishmen were put to death by a 
sentence of the Dutch Court in the island. With India itself 
the English began to trade in a regular manner about 161 3, 
then they received a charter from the reigning Emperor 
Jehangir.' The great power in India was now the Mogtd 
Empire, ruled by Mahometan princes, sprung from Baber, 



298 THE GREA TNESS OF FRANCE. [chap. 

a descendant of Timour, who established himself in India 
in 1526. His grandson Akbar, in whose time the Mogul 
dominion was spread over the greater part of India, was the 
greatest and best of all Mahometan rulers. But in truth he 
gave up Mahometanism, and set up a new religion of his own. 
yeha7igir was his son. The first settlements in India were 
of course merely factories for trade, but in those distant 
seas it was needful for merchants to fortify their factories, 
and to have ships able to withstand an enemy. Commercial 
enterprises thus gradually changed into political and mili- 
tary enterprises, and the Company, which was at first merely 
a company of traders, came to have its dominions and armies 
like a sovereign prince or commonwealth, and in the end to 
have rule over nearly all India. These times however are 
yet to come ; but the story of the English power in India is 
something like the history of Rome; wherever the English 
merchants settled and fortified their factories, their dominion 
really began. Their first settlement was at Suratj one 
which became of more importance began at Madras in 
1640; and in 1662 the King of England, as distinguished 
from the trading Company, first became possessed of a 
dominion in India. This was Bombay, which was given to 
England by Portugal on the marriage of Charles the Second 
to the Portuguese Infanta Katharine. But this new do- 
minion was before long granted by the King to the Company. 
In 1698 began the English settlement at Calcutta, and these 
three, Madras, Bombay, and Calctctta, remained the chief 
seats of the British dominion in India. During all this time 
there were many disputes between different sets of merchants 
about the right of trading with India, till at last, in 1708, the 
East India Company was put on the footing which it kept long 
after, and under which it gradually obtained either sovereignty 
or commanding influence in most parts of India. By this 
time the Mogul Empire was much weaker than it had been 
at the time when the English first settled. Shah Jehan, the 



XIV.] THE ENGLISH IN INDIA. 299 



son of Jehangir, who reigned from 1627 to 1658, was a great 
prince, but under his son Azcrirngzebe, who reigned from 1658 
to 1707, being thus nearly contemporary with Lewis the 
Fourteenth, the Empire, though outwardly at its highest pitch 
of splendour, was really falling to pieces. For Aurungzebe 
was a bigoted Mahometan, and his intolerance led to a re- 
volt of the Malirattas, a Hindoo people who founded a great 
dominion in Central India. And presently the rulers of the 
different provinces under the Mogul Emperors began to grow 
into independent princes, keeping up only a nominal submis- 
sion to the Great Mogul, as he was called. This is the same 
thing as we have seen so often in other parts of the world, in 
the Caliphate and in the Empire and in the Kingdom of 
France. By these means the progress of the Enghsh in India 
was much helped. But we must remember that all this time 
there was no sign at all that the Enghsh were likely to come 
to the head power in India. There were as yet nothing but 
one set of traders and settlers among others, Portuguese, 
Dutch, French, and Danish. Some of these settlements of 
other nations remain still, though the English have so greatly 
outstripped them. But with the islands — except Ceylon, 
which lies close to the peninsula, as Sicily does to Italy — 
the English have had but little to do. They have always 
chiefly belonged to the Dutch and Spaniards. 

15. European Colonization in America. — During all this 
time colonization was going on briskly. The two great 
maritime and commercial powers, England and the Ufiited 
Provinces, now took the lead in it. It was now that Eng- 
land was rising to her great position by sea, and her new 
power led both to the foundation of new colonies and to 
the conquest of the colonies of other European nations. 
The Spaniards and Portuguese kept their great possessions 
in America, though the Spanish power had utterly gone 
down in the New World as well as in the Old. The Dutch 



300 THE GREA TNESS OF FRANCE. [chap. 

colony of New Nethcrland was flourishing, though the 
Dutch and English often had quarrels. In 1638 the Swedes 
also, now that Sweden had become a great power, set up a 
colony on Delaware Bay, but in 1655 this colony was con- 
quered by the Dutch, and was joined to their own New 
Netherland. But New Netherland itself did not last very 
long, for it was conquered during the first war between the 
Dutch and the Enghsh in Charles the Second's time, and 
several English colonies were made out of parts of it. The 
chief town, New Amsterdam, changed its name to New 
York, in honour of the King's brother, James Duke of York. 
Other colonies were planted during Charles the Second's 
time, as Carolina and New Jersey, and especially Penn- 
sylvania, v/hich was planted by the famous Quaker William 
Penn, who made laws for his colony, and established greater 
toleration in religion than was to be found anywhere else. 
Meanwhile the French claimed to hold all the vast regions 
to the north and west of the English colonies, and, whenever 
there was war between France and England in Europe, 
there was also war between the French and English colonies 
in America. By the Peace of Utrecht in 17 13 the French 
colony of Acadie was given up to Great Britain, and became 
the colony of Nova Scotia. But, on the. other hand, the 
French were really colonizing at the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi, in their province of Louisiana, and in 17 18 they 
founded the city of New Orleans. The last of the English 
colonies in these parts was Georgia, which was founded in 
1723. That made up the number of the thirteen colonies 
in North America, which still remain as the thirteen oldest 
states of the American Union. 

16. Summary.— Thus, during this period, France gained a 
great increase of territory, and more than once she caused 
great alliances to be formed to withstand her. The great 
Spanish monarchy was divided, all its outlying possessions 



XIV.] COLONIES IN AMERICA. 301 

in Europe being separated from Spain, England and Scot- 
la7id were more firmly joined together, and began to take 
a leading part in all continental affairs, and Great Britain 
for the first time won a footing in the Mediterranean. 
In Geri7tany the Emperors became mere Austrian princes ; 
but, as Austrian princes, they gained a great increase of 
power, both in Italy ^ from which they had so long been shut 
out, and in South-Eastern Europe as Kings of Htcngary. 
In Northern Germany also we see the beginning of a great 
and more strictly German power in the growth of Branden- 
burg or Prussia. In Italy, Savoy advanced, and Venice still 
maintained a gallant, though on the whole a losing, fight 
against the Turks. In Northern Europe Sweden had, by the 
end of the period, quite lost the great position which it held 
at the beginning, though it had gained some territory at the 
expense of Denmark. Poland was fast sinking, while the 
greatness of Russia was beginning. The power of the Turks 
was now much less to be feared, and, if they gained territory 
from Venice, they lost their possessions in Hungary and 
the neighbouring lands. In India the Dutch drove the 
Portuguese from the Islands, and the English settlements 
in India itself began. Colonization went on steadily in 
North America, and the English colonies were decidedly get- 
ting the upper hand. In the way of learning and litera- 
ture, the United Provinces still produced great scholars and 
political writers ; but for literature in their own tongues Eng- 
land and Fraiice certainly stood at the head. Many of the 
most famous writers of both those languages, and also some 
of the chief philosophers, belong to this time. Spaiji and 
Italy had greatly sunk ; and Germany had not thoroughly 
recovered from the Thirty Years' War, though it is impossible 
not to mention the great scholar and philosopher Leibnitz. 
Generally, French influence had too much power in Germany 
just now for anything very original to be done. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE RISE OF RUSSIA. 

\aracter of the period {i) — rivalry of Austria and Prussia (2) — 
revival of the pozver of Spain ; reign of the Emperor Charles the 
Sixth ; exchange of the Kingdoms of Sardinia and Sicily (2) — War 
of the Polish Election (2) — the Pragmatic Sanction (2) — War of 
the Austi'ian Succession ; Prussian conquest of Silesia ; election of 
Charles the Seventh (3) — Maria Theresa; her husband Francis 
elected EtJiperor (3) — Frederick the Great ; the Seven Years' War (3) 
— i^eign of Joseph the Second [T))— the Hanoverian Idngs' in Eng- 
land;-' attempt of the Pretender ; dealings tvith France, Spain, and 
Sweden {4.)— War with Spain ; share of England in continental 
wars ; administration of Pitt (4) — revolt oj the American colo- 
nies ; war with France and Spain {/^—independence of Ireuind 
(4) — reigiz of Lezvis the Fiftee^iih ; annexation of Corsica and Lor- 
raine {<^)- — improved state of things in Spain; the Family Com- 
pact; administration of Pombal in Portugal {6)— changes in 
Italy ; advance of Savoy ; revolution in Genoa and Corsica (7) — 
the Popes (7) — Reign of Peter the Great in Russia ; his conquests 
from Sweden and other powers ; rise of Russia (8) — reigns -of women 
in Russia ; Catharine the Second ; conquest oj Crim Im^tary (8) — 
affairs of Pola7td ; the three partitions (8) — loss of power and terri- 
tory by Sweden ; state of Den?nark and the Duchies (9) — affairs of 
the Netherla1^ds ; the Stadholders in the United Provinces made 
hereditary ; revolts in the Austrian Netherlands (10) — success of the 
Turks against Austria (ll) — their zvars with Russia; successive 
losses of territory ; dealings of Russia with the Christian iiations 
(11) — grotvth of the English pozuer' in India ; career ofjCUz^'; re- 
lation of England to the native states ; trial of War'ren^Hast'ifig'S 
(12) — the English Colonies in America ; conquest of Canada (13J 



CH. XV.] 'THE RISE OF RUSSIA. 303 

—rez'olt 'of the colonies ; foundation of the United States (13) — ■ 
cession of Florida (13) — Summary (14). 

1. Character of the Period. — The greatest change which 
took place in Europe during the time to which we have now 
come was undoubtedly the growth of the great power of 
Russia. No other state in Europe changed in anything like 
the same degree till quite the last years of the eighteenth 
century. Still Russia did not come to at all the same kind 
of rank which had been held by France, and, before that, by 
Spain. Nor did Russia rise to its greatness by displacing 
France in the way in which France rose by displacing Spain. 
Therefore, though this chapter is called after the greatest 
event of the period, still Russia will not be the centre of our 
story in the same way that the Empire was for so long, and 
afterwards Spain and France. In fact during this tim.e there is 
not any one power in Europe which stands out in any marked 
way above all Qthers. There are several great powers which 
are much more nearly on a level than before, and among them 
one very important one is growing up in the form of Prussia. 
A great part indeed of this period is taken up by rivalries 
between France and England, and between Prussia and 
Austria. It is not always easy to remember which side each 
power took in the many wars of this time, but one rule is a 
pretty safe one, that England and France will not often be 
found on the same side. In short, no power in Europe 
holds a higher place at that time than England. Without 
exercising any general dominion or making any general 
conquests, England had a, hand in nearly everything that 
went on. But we must, in this chapter, make the Imperial 
House, of Austria the centre of our story, as hardly any- 
thing happened during this Avhole time in which that House 
had not a direct share. 

2. The Reign of Charles the Sixth. — The greater part . 



304 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap, 

of the German history of this period is taken up with the 
rivahy between the House of Austria, the family of the 
Kings of Hungary and Archdukes of Austria, out of whom 
the Emperors were now chosen almost as a matter of course, 
and the House of Hohenzollern, the House of the Kings of 
Prussia and Electors of Brandenburg, who had begun to rise 
into greatness under the G7xat Elector. But this did not begin 
till some time later on, not till after the death of the Emperor 
Charles the Sixth. The first disturbance came — what we 
should hardly have expected — from Spain. The new French 
King of Spain, Philip the Fifth, under his minister Cardinal 
Alberoni, tried to get back the lands which Spain had lost, 
especially the Kingdom of Sardinia, which had passed to the 
Emperor, and that of Sicily, which had passed to the Duke of 
Savoy. The Spaniards actually conquered Sardinia, and went 
some way towards conquering Sicily. But France, E?tgla7id, 
and the United Provinces presently joined the Emperor in the 
Quadruple Alliance against Spain, and the end of it was that 
Spain had to give up her projects, and the Emperor and the 
King of Sicily exchanged their two Italian kingdoms. Thus 
the Emperor Charles the Sixth became King of the Two 
Sicilies, like Frederick the Second, and the Dukes of Savoy 
became Kings of Sardinia, the title by which they were 
known till the present King became King of Italy. This was 
in 1720, and in the same year the Emperor made what is 
called a Pragmatic Sanction, v/hich was guaranteed by the 
chief powers of Europe, and by which all his hereditary 
dominions, Hungary, Sicily, Austria, and the rest, were to 
pass to his heirs female in case he left no son. Presently 
this Emperor got entangled in a series of unsuccessful wars. 
On the death of Augustus the Strong, in 1733, there was a 
double election to the Crown of Poland between Frederick 
Augustus Elector of Saxony, the son of the late King, and 
Stanislaus^ who had before been made King by Charles the 



XV.] CHARLES THE SIXTH 305 

Twelfth. The Emperor and Russia supported Augustus, but, 
afe Lewis the Fifteenth had married the daughter of Stanislaus, 
he took upon him to make war on the Emperor, and he was 
joined by Charles Emmanuel the Third, King of Sardinia, 
and by Philip of Spain^ or rather by his wife Elizabeth of 
Parma, both of whom had designs on the Austrian posses- 
sions in Italy. Thus a war took place in which the two Bour- 
bon Kings were joined against the Emperor, and in which for 
once England took no part. The end of this war, called the 
War of the Polish Election^ was that the House of Austria 
lost the greater part of its Italian dominions. There was, 
as usual, a good deal of shifting among the smaller Duchies, 
but the important changes were that \h^ Two Sicilies were 
given to a younger son of the King of Spain — making a third 
Bourbon kingdom in Europe— and part of the Duchy of Mila7i 
was given to the King of Sardinia, whose frontier thus ad- 
vanced a little as usual. And not only the House of Austria 
but the Empi7^e lost also, for it was settled that the Duchy of 
Lorraine, a fief of the Empire, should pass to Stanislaus — 
who gave up his claim to the Crown of Poland — for life, and 
should be joined to France at his death. Thus France again 
advajiced at the expense of Germany. The DuK:e of Lorraine, 
Francis, who had married Maria Theresa, the daughter of the 
Emperor Charles, got the succession to the Grand Duchy of 
Tuscany, where the line Qi\}i\Q Medici was dying out, instead 
of his own Duchy of Lorraine. 

3, The Wars of Austria and Prussia, — It was in this 
way settled that the hereditary dominions of the House of 
Austria should pass to the House of Lorraine, as represent- 
ing the House of Habsburg in the female line. And it was 
no doubt expected that the Empire and the Kingdom of 
Germany would pass quietly along with the hereditary states. 
And all this did happen in the end, but not till after much 
disputing and fighting. When the Emperor Charles died in 

X 



3o6 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap. 

1740, all his hereditary dominions, the Kingdoms of Htin- 
gary and Bohemia, the Archduchy of Atistria, and the 
rest, passed, according to the P?-agiiiatic Sanction, to his 
daughter Maria Theresa, who was of course called by her 
highest title, that of Queen of Hicngary. The Empire of 
course was at the disposal of the Electors, and there was 
an i7iterregnum of two years. But, notwithstanding the 
Pragmatic Sanction, various princes began to lay claim to 
the whole, or to particular parts, of the dominions of the 
House of Austria. Above all, Cha7'les Elector of Bavaria 
gave himself out as the rightful heir, and his claim was 
supported by France. Meanwhile F^-ederick the Secoiid of 
Prussia, commonly called Frederick the Great, who had just 
succeeded his father Frederick William and had inherited 
from him a well-disciplined army, put forth a claim to the 
greater part of the Ditchy of Silesia, and presently took 
possession of it by force. The next year the French and 
Bavarians overran Austria ; and in 1742 the Elector of 
Bavaria was elected Emperor as Charles the Seventh. Maria 
Theresa, had now to take refuge in Hungary, where, notwith- 
standing all that the Hungarians had suffered from her prede- 
cessors, she f'yund'great zeal in her cause. Presently England 
2ivA Sa7^di7iia came to her help, ^ and the war went on in 
Germany till 1745, when Charles the Seventh died, and Maria 
Theresa's \\Vi€^2ivA Francis was elected Emperor. From this 
time she was called the E77ipress-Quee7i, being Queen of Hun- 
gary in her own right and Empress as wife of the Emperor 
Francis. The war went on between the Empress-Queen, 
England, and the United Provinces on one side, and France 
and Spain on the other, till 1748, when Silesia was formally 
given up to the King of Prussia. It was under Frederick the 
Great that Prussia, the growth of which had begun under the 
Great Elector, rose to be one of the chief powers of Europe. 
He was a philosopher and writer, and, when he was not at war, 



XV.] THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 307 

he did much to make things better within his kingdom. But 
there was a good deal more fighting to come before the end 
of his reign, for in 1756 another war broke out between him 
and the Empress-Queen. This was called the Seven Years^ 
War. Now things turned about, for not only Russia, Poland., 
and Sweden, but even France, was on the Austrian side, and 
Frederick was surrounded by enemies and left alone on the 
continent. England however joined him, and in 1762 Peler 
the Third of Russia, who was a great admirer of Frederick, 
changed sides. The way in which Frederick bore up for 
so long against so many enemies was one of the greatest 
triumphs of military skill on record. There was another 
small war in Germany in 1777 about the succession of 
Bavaria, between Frederick and the Emperor Joseph the 
Second. Joseph had been elected King of the Romans in 
1764, and he succeeded his father in 1765, being also made 
by his mother fellow-sovereign of her hereditary dominions. 
In 1780 Maria Theresa died, and Joseph reigned alone. 
Joseph had great schemes of reform in all his dominions, 
but he was too fond of putting everything to rights according 
to his own notions, without regard to the old laws of his 
different kingdoms, so that in the end he did more harm than 
good. In this way he tried to sweep away all the old insti- 
tutions of Hungary, but just before his death in 1790 he 
restored them. He was succeeded by his brother, Leopold 
the Second, and he in 1792 by the last Emperor, Francis 
the Second. By this time quite a new state of things was 
beginning throughout Europe. 

4. Great Britain. — During a great part of this time during 
which Great Bintain was so much mixed up with the affairs 
of the continent, she had herself a foreign King. George the 
First could not even speak English, and he thought much 
more of his Electorate than of his Kingdom. The same may 
be said of George the Second also, though he had got so fai 

X 2 



3o8 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap. 

as to speak English. Thus England got mixed up in several 
wars with which she had not much to do. At the beginning 
of George the First's reign, Lewis the Fourteenth, just before 
his death, abetted the attempt made in 17 15 by the son of 
James the Second, who called himself James the Third, to 
win the Crowns of England and Scotland, for of course he did 
not acknowledge the Union of the two kingdoms. This at- 
tempt failed, and England was on good terms, and even in 
alliance, with the Duke of Orleans, who was Regent for the 
young King Lewis the Fifteenth. This was the time when 
England joined v/ith France and the Emperor Charles to 
withstand Spain. This time England really was threatened, 
for Spain now took up the cause of the Pretender, as did 
Charles of Sweden, who was angry because the King of Great 
Britain had got his possessions in north-western Germany. 
In George the Second's reign there was another war with 
Spain, which began in 1739, and which was forced on the 
King and his Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, by the general 
wish of the people, who were stirred up by tales of wrongs 
done to Englishmen by the Spaniards in America. But 
little came of this war, except some additions to geographical 
knowledge in the shape of the famous voyages of Lord 
Anson. Then, from 1741 to 1748, England plunged into a 
war on the continent about a matter with which she had 
nothing to do at all, namely the war of the Austrian Succes- 
sion, in which, as we have seen, England took the side of the 
Queen of Hungary, and France that of the King of Prussia 
and the Emperor Charles the Seventh. Nothing came of 
this war either, as the English and French gave back their 
conquests to each other at the end of it; but it should be 
remembered that in 1745 the son of the Old Pretender, 
Charles Edward, with French help, made an attempt to gain 
the British Crowns for his father. Scotland he actually did 
hold for a while, and he kept court at Edinburgh, but this 



XV.] WAJ^S OF ENGLAND. 309 

rebellion was quelled, like the earlier one, at the Battle of 
Culloden. Then a war with France arose out of the quarrels 
between the colonists of the two nations in America, and. 
this war got mixed up with the Seven Yeai^s' War in 
Germany. The war, as far as England was concerned, was 
chiefly waged by sea and in America ; and under the ad- 
ministration of Mr. Fztt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, many 
victories and conquests were made, especially in the year 
1759. The war went on into the reign of George the Third, 
which began in 1760, and it was ended in 1763 by the Peace 
of Paris, by which England got back much that had been 
lost by the war, and greatly enlarged her American posses- 
sions. But presently, in the reign of George the Third, the 
greater part of those possessions were lost altogether. An 
attempt to impose taxes on the colonists led to resistance. 
The thirteen colonies, from New England to Georgia, re- 
volted, and in 1776 they declared themselves independent, 
and thus made the beginning of the great Federal Republic 
of the United States. The French stepped in during the 
war to help the colonists, and they were presently joined by 
Spain and the United Provinces ; and, when peace was 
made in 1783, Great Britain had to acknowledge the inde- 
pendence of the States and to give back Minorca to Spain. 
But Gibraltar, her other Spanish possession, was kept, and 
its defence during this war against the forces of France and 
Spain is one of the exploits of which Englishmen are most 
proud. In 1782 Ireland, which had hitherto been a kingdom 
dependent on Great Britain, became independent, the two 
kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland now having the same 
King but distinct and independent Parliaments. It was also 
during this time that the English power vastly extended 
itself in India, but that will be better spoken of in a separate 
section. During all these wars Great Britain commonly 
confined herself to her position as an insular power. She 



3IO ' THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap. 

made no attempt at winning continental dominion, as she 
had done in the times of the old wars with France. Her 
only outlying possessions in Europe were Gibraltar and 
Minorca ; on the other hand, though foreign powers gave 
help to pretenders to the British Crown, there was no serious 
attempt on the part of any enemy to get possession of any 
part of the British Islands. The true object of these wars 
was dominion in distant parts of the world, and the great 
gains and losses of England and France were not made in 
Europe, but in America and India. It marks quite a new 
state of things that this should be so. Europe had nov/ 
ceased to be the only world of European nations. The 
great maritime powers held dominions in the East and West 
greater than they possessed at home ; and the colonies which 
England lost have grown into a great English-speaking 
nation in the New World. 

5. France. — The long reign of Lewis the Fourteenth was 
followed by the reign, nearly as long, of his great-grandson 
Lezvis the Fifteenth^ who also came to the crown in his 
childhood, and reigned till 1774. Lewis the Fourteenth, with 
all that is to be said against him both as a man and as a 
King, was at least a ruler with a strong will, who had objects, 
and who largely carried those objects out. But Lewis the 
Fifteenth, though not without capacity, seems to have wil- 
fully given himself up to vice and idleness and the dominion 
of unworthy favourites. Yet France, as we have already 
seen, kept up her position as a great power throughout his 
reign, and she even gained some increase of territory. We 
have already seen how France took a leading part in all the 
chief wars of this time — how she was commonly opposed to 
Austria, except in the first war with Spain and in the Seven 
Years' War — how, except in the first war with Spain, she was* 
always opposed to England, and how her wars with England 
were mainly carried on by sea, and among the colonial posses^ 



XV.] LORRAINE AND CORSICA. 311 

sions of the two countries. In Europe France extended 
herself in two places during this time, namely in Lorraine^ 
where the Duchy, which had been given to King StanislaiLs 
for life and which had greatly flourished under him, was 
joined to France at his death in 1766. And, as by this time 
nearly the whole of Elsass had been annexed bit by bit, the 
lands which France had taken from the Empire since the first 
seizure of the Three Bishopricks now formed a large and 
compact territory. The other gain of France at this time 
was in quite another part of Europe, namely the Italian 
island of Co7^sica. This had been for a long time subject to 
the commonwealth of Ge?ioa. But the Genoese government 
was oppressive, and the Corsicans revolted more than once. 
Their chief leaders were the two Paoli^ father and son, of 
whom the second is much the better known. The Genoese 
called in the French to help them, and at last, in 1768, they 
gave up their righis to France, and the French presently con- 
quered the island. These annexations happened during the 
reign of Lewis the Fifteenth, during which time the internal 
state of the kingdom was getting worse and worse. His 
grandson Lewis the Sixteenth tried to make things better as 
well as he could ; but he was quite unfit for such a task, and 
he had in the end to suffer for the misgovernment of his 
forefathers, and for the despotism under which they had 
brought their own kingdom and so many lands which they 
had added to it. 

6. Spain. — ^We have already seen that Spain during this 
time, perhaps because her dominions were now so much 
smaller, showed much more of life than she had shown 
during the latter part of the sixteenth century. This was 
shown both in a marked improvement in her government at 
home and in a vast advance in her European position. If her 
attempts to win back her lost territory failed, she was able to 
set up Spanish princes on more than one throne in Italy. 



312 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap. 

In the time of Albe7'oni we have seen that France and Eng- 
land were united against Spain ; in the later wars it was the 
other way, and France and Spain were commonly joined to- 
tjether against England and the allies of England on the 
continent. And in 1761, the two Bourbon kingdoms were 
still more closely united by what was called the Family 
Compact. Presently they both set upon Portugal, as being 
an ally of England. The reigning King of Portugal was 
Joseph, who had an able minister called the Marquess of 
Pombal. By the brave resistance of the Portuguese and the 
help of the English, the French and Spanish invaders were 
driven back. During this period the Jesuits wqxq driven out 
both of Spain and Portugal, having been found, as they were 
in most countries, to be dangerous to the civil power. 

7. Italy. — During this period Italy again gained some sort 
of show of independence as compared with its state in the 
seventeenth century. It still formed a collection of distinct 
principalities and commonwealths, of which the cominbn- 
wealths were oligarchies and the principalities despotisms, 
and most of the princes were members of foreign royal 
families. Little room was thus left for any real national feel- 
ing. Still the whole country was not so utterly under the 
power of one foreign King as it had been in the days of 
the Spanish dominion. On the other hand, the common- 
wealth of Venice, which had done such great things in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, seemed to lose all 
strength and life after the loss of Peloponnesos. For a 
moment indeed after the Peace of Utrecht, and still more 
after the exchange of Sicily and Sardinia, it might seem that 
Italy was as completely held down by the German branch of 
the House of Austria as it had before been by the Spanish 
branch. Among the other states there were constant changes 
during the several wars, but things were at last settled by the 
Peace of 1748. One Bourbon prince from Spain, Charles^ 



XV.] CHANGES IN ITALY. -^13 

who afterwards succeeded to the Crown of Spain, was settled 
in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, another became Duke of 
Parma and Piacensa, and the Emperor Francis was Gj'and 
Duke of Tuscany, where he was succeeded in 1765 by his son 
Leopold, who afterwards was Emperor. Leopold did a vast 
deal for his Duchy and was as good a prince as a despotic 
prince can be. But the only really national princes in Italy 
were those of the House of Savoy, who were now Kings of 
Sardinia, Victor A madeus the Second and Charles Emmamiel 
the Third. They took a part in every war, and were not very 
scrupulous about changing sides, but they always gained 
something in the end. This time, by the Peace of 1748, they 
gained another part of the Duchy of Milan, the rest being 
left to the House of Austria. In all these changes the people 
were handed over from one master to another without their 
wishes being thought of at all The only parts of Italy 
where any life remained among the people at this time were 
Genoa and Corsica. In the war of the Austrian Succession 
Genoa took the side of France, so in 1746 it was occupied by 
the Austrians. But the people, without any help from the 
oligarchical government, rose up and drove the Austrians 
out, a revolution which had a good deal of effect on the 
course of the war in those parts. And we have seen that, as 
the people of Genoa rose against the yoke of Austria, so the 
people of Corsica rose against the yoke of Genoa, till they 
were handed over to France. The Popes of this time, especially 
Benedict the Fourteenth and Clement the FoiLrteenth, were 
mostly very good men, but they had ceased to be of any im- 
portance as temporal princes, and the best of them were 
unable to make any thorough reform in their own dominions. 
Clement the Fourteenth, who is perhaps better known by his 
family name of Ganganelli, altogether put down the Order 
of the Jesuits in 1773, but it was afterwards set up again. 
8. Russia and Poland. — We now come to what is really 



314 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap. 

the greatest event during this time, namely the wonderful 
rise of Russia. For this we must go some way back into our 
former period, so as to tell the story straight on. Russia was 
already a powerful state in its own part of the world, but it 
was quite cut off from any dealings with Europe in general 
till the reign of Peter the Great. He began to reign together 
with his \iXO\h.Qx Ivan in 1682, and alone in 1689. During 
their joint reign Poland finally gave up to Russia a great 
deal of the Russian territory which she had formerly held. 
Presently Peter began to turn his mind to naval affairs. He 
improved his one haven oi Archangel, and presently, in 1696, 
he conquered Azofixoxw the Turks, so that he now had a haven 
on the Black Sea. Then he twice travelled in various coun- 
tries, especially Holland and England, to learn such things 
as might be useful for his own people. Between his two 
journeys came his war with Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, 
which in the end turned to the greatest advantage of Russia. 
For Peter got Livonia and the other possessions of Sweden 
east of the Baltic, and so he had a footing on a third sea. 
Within this newly-gained territory he founded his newly- 
made capital of Saiitt Petersbiirg, which thus supplanted 
Moscow, as Moscow had supplanted the earlier capitals. 
Later in his reign he extended his borders on the other 
Russian sea, the Caspian Sea, at the expense of Persia. He 
took the title of Emperor of all the Rtissias, which amounted 
to a claim over the Russian provinces held by Poland. In 
the internal state of the country he made many changes, 
bringing the clergy under the control of the civil power, and 
making improvements in many ways, though it must be re- 
membered that improvements of this kind, when made by the 
single will of a despot, do in fact only make his despotism 
stronger. Still Peter is entitled to the honour of having raised 
his country from a very low position in Europe to a very great 
-one. His policy was carried on by his widow Catharine^ 



XV.] CATHARINE THE SECOND. 315 

who succeeded him in 1725, the Crown of Russia passing, 
like the old Roman Empire, sometimes by will and some- 
times by revolution, without any very certain rule of suc- 
cession. During the greater part of the eighteenth century 
the throne was filled by women, Anne the niece of Peter, 
Elizabeth his daughter, and lastly Cathariiie the Second, who 
succeeded in 1762 by the murder of her husband Peter the 
Thh'd, and reigned till 1796.- With some checks, Azof for 
instance being twice or thrice lost and won again in the wars 
with the Turks, Russia, notwithstanding its internal revolu- 
tions, went on advancing in the face of other nations. Under 
Catharine the Second the great conquest of Crmz Tartmy 
was made. Russia now got rid of the last trace of the old 
Tartar dominion, and she again had free access to the Euxine, 
as when Russian fleets threatened Constantinople in the ninth 
and tenth centuries. But the chief advance towards Western 
Europe was made by the share of Russia in the successive par- 
titions of Poland. The internal government of that country 
was so bad, both the King and the people being subject to a 
tumultuous nobility, that the state grew weaker and weaker. 
The last two Kings, Angustiis Elector of Saxony, son of 
Augustus the Strong, and Stanislaus Poniatowski, a native 
Pole, were forced on the country by Russia, and attempts at 
internal reform, as being likely to make the kingdom stronger, 
were always checked. At last, in 1772, the Empress Catharine 
of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and the Empress- 
Queeit, as Queen of Hungary — though the last very un- 
willingly — -joined together to partition Poland, each taking 
certain provinces. In 1793 another partition was made by 
Russia and Prussia only, and in 1795 Poland was destroyed 
altogether as an independent nation and its remaining terri- 
tory was divided between its three neighbours. But it must be 
remembered that what was then understood by Poland took 
in both the old Kingdom of Poland the Duchy of Lithuania^ 



3i6 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap. 

and the Russian provinces held by Poland. Russia got 
back most of her old territory, and she took also the greater 
part of Lithuania. Prussia took West Prussia, the greater 
part of old Poland, and a small part of Lithuania. Austria 
or Hungaiy (whichever we are to call it) took the rest of old 
Poland, and, oddly enough, some territory which had once 
been Russian. In the Russian provinces the mass of the 
people were still Russian, and they had often suffered per- 
secution from Poland for cleaving to the Eastern Church. 
This however does not justify the breach of the law of 
nations, and the other two powers, which divided Poland 
itself, had not even thus much of excuse to make. By this 
partition, Russia, which had hitherto stood on the confines 
of Europe, was brought as it were into the middle of the 
continent and into the thick of European affairs. 

9. Northern Europe. — During this time the Scandinavian 
Kingdoms, especially Sweden, were of much less account 
than they had been in the period before it. Neither of them 
now took much share in the general affairs of Europe. 
Sweden had had more than one war with Russia, and in 1743 
she had to give up the district called Carelia on the Gulf 
of Finland, and this time without gaining any territory to 
the west. The history of the country is mainly remarkable 
for its internal revolutions. After the changes of 1720 the 
government became almost wholly aristocratic ; but in 1772 
the royal power, with the good will of the mass of the people, 
was set up again. In Denmark meanwhile the government 
remained an absolute monarchy, but the country was on the 
whole well governed and prosperous, and its naval power 
especially was greatly increased. During this time too the 
ever shifting Duchies of Sleswick and Holstein were at last 
wholly united with the Danish Crown, Holstein being held 
as a fief of the Empire, while Sleswick was not. 

10. The Netherlands. — During this time those provinces 



XV.] THE NETHERLANDS. 317 

of the Netherlands which had belonged to Spain were held 
by the House of Austria, while the Seveji United Provinces 
remained independent ; but, like Sweden, their importance 
in Europe in the eighteenth century was very much less than 
it had been in the seventeenth. In the War of the Aus- 
trian Succession the United Provinces supported the Queen 
of Hungary, and the Austrian provinces were overrun by the 
French. But when, in 1747, the Dutch territory also was 
invaded, a change in the internal constitution followed, by 
which the Prince of Orange, William the Fowth^ was made 
hereditary Stadholdcr. During the war between England and 
France which arose out of the revolt of the American colonies, 
there was a short war between England and the United 
Provinces, but both the grounds of quarrel and the terms of 
peace had almost wholly to do with the colonial possessions 
of the two countries. Presently there were disturbances in 
the country and dissatisfaction with the Stadholder, William 
the Fifth, which gave both the King of Prussia and the 
Emperor Joseph the Second excuses for interfering. By 
the end of this time, about 1790, the United Provinces had 
sunk into utter insignificance, -being almost wholly under the 
control of Prussia. In the Austrian Netherlands also the 
changes made by Joseph the Second led to revolts. 

II. The Turks. — The power of the Turki during this time 
had altogether ceased to be dreaded by Christian nations. 
The advances of Russia during this time form the greater 
part of the European history of Turkey, but it was not till 
the reign of Catharine the Second that the advantage set 
steadily in on the Russian side, and in the early part of 
the period Turkey was decidedly successful on the side of 
Austria. During the reign of Mahmoud the First, who 
reigned from 1730 to 1754, in a war which began in 1737, 
the Turks,' by the Peace of Belgrade in 1739, recovered 
from Austria the city of Belgrade, and all that had been 



3i8 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap. 

given up by the Peace of Passarowitz. And by this treaty 
Russia was not to keep any fleet in the Black Sea. But in 
the war between Catharme the Second and Mustapha the 
Third, which began in 1769, the advantages were wholly on 
the Russian side. The loss of territory by Turkey during the 
reign of Catharine was great. By the Peace of Kamafdji, in 
1774, the Sultans gave up their superfo/lty over the Tartar 
Khans of the Crimea. The Khan was then recognized as an 
independent power, but the country was soon afterwards con- 
quered by Russia. By the next war, which was ended by the 
Treaty of J assy in 1792, the Turkish frontier fell back to the 
Dniester. But almost more important than these losses of 
territory was the system of interference in the internal con- 
cerns of the Sultan's dominions which went on from this time 
on the part of Russia. As the Turkish government grew 
weaker, and as the tribute of children was no longer levied, 
the Christian nations, Greeks, Slavonians, and others, which 
were under the Turkish yoke; began to revolt whenever they 
had a chance. In so doing they were of course always en- 
couraged by Russia, though they seldom really gained any- 
thing by Russian meddling in their affairs. Still this tendency 
of the Christian nations to revolt, and the encouragement 
given to these revolts by Russia, all mark the beginning of a 
new state of things in Eastern Europe, and one which is going 
on still. It should specially be noticed that by the Treaty of 
Kainardji Russia obtained certain rights of interference in 
the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, 
which were under the superiority of the Sultans, without 
forming part of their immediate dominions. In these wars, 
Russia, which sixty years before had had no European haven 
except on the White Sea, was able to send fleets into the 
Mediterranean. She was now fully established, not only as 
one of the chief powers of Europe, but as the ruling power in 
the south-east as well as in ibe north-east. The Eastern 



,IQ 



^y.] THE ENGLISH IN INDIA. 

Church, which had been so long kept down under Maho- 
metan bondage, now again begins to be of importance, as 
being the rehgion both of the greater part of the Chris- 
tian subjects of the Turks, and also of Russia which pro- 
fessed to be their defender. 

12. The English power in India. — It was in the course 
of this period that the great English dominion in hidia grew 
up out of what were at first the mere mercantile settlements 
of the East India Company. But this was not till after a 
hard struggle with the French, who at one time seemed likely 
to gain the greatest power in the peninsula. In 1746, during 
the war of the Austrian Succession in Europe, Laboui^do7inais, 
the French governor of the Mauritius, seized Madras, which 
was kept till the end of the war. But meanwhile Ditpleix, 
the governor of Pondicherry, the chief French settlement in 
India, formed great schemes of French dominion in the East, 
and wars went on between the French and the English in 
India, under cover of supporting different native princes. 
These wars did not even stop when France and England 
were at peace, in the time between the two wars of the 
Austrian Sitccession and the Seven Vears^ Wa?^. In 1756 the 
English settlement at Calcutta was taken by Suraj-ad-dowla, 
the Nabob of Bengal, one of the princes who owed a nominal 
vassalage to the Great Mogul. Now it was that many 
Englishmen died in what was called the Black Hole. But 
now came the great advance of the English power under 
Clive and the battle of Plassy in 1757, in which the Nabob, 
with a vast native army and with a small body of French 
auxiliaries, was utterly overthrown by Clive's little army 
of Enghsh and of natives under Enghsh discipline. This 
battle laid the real foundation of the English dominion in 
India. But the war with France still went on in Southern 
India with var^qng success till the Peace of 1763, when Pon- 
aicherry, which had been taken by the English, was restored 



320 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap. 

to the French. Since then it has been commonly taken and 
given back whenever there has been any war between Eng- 
land and France. But neither the French power in India 
nor that of any other European nation has, since the days of 
Clive, been able to stand up against that of England, Since 
that time the English dealings with India have been much 
like those of ancient Rome in the Mediterranean lands. One 
state after another has first become dependent and then 
has been incorporated, just as when a kingdom or common- 
wealth was made a Roman province. It must be remem- 
bered that all this time the Enghsh dominion in India was 
not in the hands of the English Government, but still in those 
of the Company. It was only in 1784 that the affairs of 
India were brought at all into the hands of the Home 
Government by the institution of the Board of Control, a 
body acting in the King's name, to control in certain cases 
the management of affairs by the Company. After Clive, the 
most famous name in the history of British India was that of 
the Governor- General Warren Hastings, who was impeached 
and tried before the House of Lords on various charges of 
oppression and misgovernment, and was acquitted after a 
trial which lasted many years. 

13, The Independence of the United States. — Georgia 
was the last English colony that was founded in North 
America during this time. The English colonies lay 
wholly along the east coast ; the French possessions in 
Canada and Louisiana hemmed them in to the north and 
west, and the Spanish colony of Florida to the south. The 
colonies of the different European nations took a large share 
in the several wars of the century. In 1759 Canada was con- 
quered by the English troops, British and colonial; this war 
was memorable for the victory and death of General Wolfe 
at Quebec. A large French-speaking population in Canada 
was thus handed over to English rule, and the French settle- 



XV.] INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 321 

ments now no longer stood in the way of the growth of the 
EngUsh colonies to the west. By the same treaty of 1763 
Floj'ida was given up by Spain to England, and Louisiana 
was divided between England and Spain, the Mississippi 
being the boundary. The French were thus quite shut out 
of North America. Then came the attempt on the part of 
Great Britain to tax the colonies, their revolt;, and the 
assistance given them by France, and afterwards by Spain. 
When the colonies in 1776 declared themselves independent, 
each colony formed an independent State, joined together 
only by a very lax Confederation. But when the war was 
over, a closer union was found necessary, and in 1789 
the constitution of the United States of America^ as a 
perfectly organized Federal commonv/ealth, rema.rkably like 
the constitution of the Achaian League in old times, was fully 
established. Each State kept its independence in its own 
affairs, but the Union formed one nation in all dealings with 
other powers. The first President of the new commonwealth 
was George Washington, who had been the great leader of 
the colonists during the war. This constitution was gradu- 
ally accepted by all the States. By the treaty of 1783 Floi'ida 
was given back to Spain, and the late British conquest of 
Canada, with the colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, 
and Newfoundland, remained part of the British dominions. 
The States were thus hemmed in to the north, and for a 
while to the south also ; but they had free power of growth 
to the west, where new settlements were quickly founded and 
were admitted into the Union as independent States on the 
sa,me terms as the first thirteen. 

14. Summary. — The greatest events during this period are 
thus to be found in the furthest parts of the civilized world. 
The rise of Russia in Eastern Europe, the foundation of the 
English dominion in India, and the establishment of the 
United States in America, are the three greatest events of 

Y 



322 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [chap. 

the time. They are more than mere common conquests 
or acquisitions of territory. Each one of them is the real 
beginning of a new state of things. The Enghsh now fairly 
took their place as the leading people of the earth in 
colonization and distant dominion. The British Empire in 
India is the greatest example of distant dominion, as dis- 
tinguished from proper colonization, on the part of any Euro- 
pean power ; and the establishment of the United States as 
an independent power has given to a people of English birth 
and speech the means of growing to far greater extent and 
power than they could have done if they had remained de- 
pendent on the mother country. Geographical knowledge 
was also greatly increased by the more thorough survey of 
the islands of the Eastern Ocean, including the vast island, 
or rather continent, of Australia, which, just at the end of 
the period with which we are now dealing, opened another 
field for English colonization. France was now altogether 
driven out of the world of distant dominion, and the other 
colonizing powers, Spain, Portugal, and Holland, could at 
most keep what they had got. None of the changes which 
happened in Western Europe at this time were at all on the 
same scale as these, for the gains and losses of the maritime 
powers had been made much less in Europe than in their 
distant possessions. In Europe, the three Western powers, 
England, France, and Spain, kept nearly the same position 
at the end of the period which they had held at the beginning. 
The United P7^ovinces and the Sca7idinavian kingdoms had 
fallen from their momentary greatness, and Italy hardly 
existed, except as the battle-field for other powers, and as a 
land in which the younger branches of ruhng families might 
be provided for. But the House of Savoy was still pushing 
its way, and it gained some increase of territor}^ by nearly 
every fresh treaty of peace. But in Eastern Europe the ad- 
vance of Russia^ at once against Sweden, Poland, and Turkey, 



XV.] SUMMARY. 323 

the way in which, from having been cooped up inland, she 
made her way into both the Baltic and the Mediterranean, 
and became a great and even threatening power, formed 
the greatest European change of the time. Russia, after 
having been thrown back for so many ages, had at last won 
the place which she had tried to win when she attacked Con- 
stantinople in the old times. Her advance is also remarkable 
as bringing into prominence a race and a religion which had 
long been kept in the background. The Slavonic nations 
with whom we have hitherto had most to do, the Poles, Bo- 
hemians, and others, belonged to the Western Church, and 
were more or less closely connected with the Western Empire. 
But with the rise of Russia, a Slavonic country which got its 
Christianity and civilization wholly from Constantinople, both 
the Slavonic race and the Eastern Church again rise into 
special importance. And so in some sort does the Eastern 
Empire also, by means of the influence which the Russian 
princes, as the most powerful princes of the Eastern Church, 
were able to exercise on those nations of their own Church, 
both Greek and Slavonic, which were still in bondage to the 
Turks. The advance of Prussia during the same time was 
very important, but it was not so important as this. The 
change was not so sudden, and it was not so great in itself. 
A new German power came to the front in Germany, and it 
has gradually grown to be the head of Germany, much 
in the same way as Wessex grew in England, Castile in 
Spain, and France in Gaul. But its rise did not, like the rise 
of Russia, bring a race and a religion from the background 
to the front. The partition of Poland, in which Russia 
and Prussia had the chief share, stands pretty well by itself 
in history ; disputed and tributary dominions have often 
been divided between several claimants, but there is no other 
case of a great and independent country being cut up in this 
way among its neighbours. These political changes and the 

Y 2 



324 THE RISE OF RUSSIA. [ch. xv. 



rise of these new powers were very great events in themselves, 
and they were also closely connected with the stir in men's 
minds which went on during this time. During the eighteenth 
century men were speculating on religion, government, and 
society in a more daring way than they had ever speculated 
on so great a scale before. French and French-speaking 
writers, Voltaire, Rousseau^ and others, were leading on men's 
minds towards that general crash of existing things, good and 
bad together, which marks the next period in so large a part 
of Europe. And rulers like the Emperor Joseph, Frederick 
of Prussia, and Catharine of Russia helped to the same end. 
For, though they ruled as absolute princes, yet the great 
changes which they made, both good and bad, tended to un- 
settle men's minds, and to make them more ready to break 
with the past altogether. This whole period then was one 
of very great importance, but it was mainly in the way of 
preparation for what was coming. It was a time of great 
advance in both physical and moral science, and one of great 
mechanical discovery. But in most branches of art, learning, 
and original composition the eighteenth century was below 
either the times before or the times after it. It seemed as 
if the world needed to be stirred up by some such general 
crash as was now near at hand. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

Character of the time (i) — reign of Lewis the Sixteenth ; the States- 
General of 1789 ; they become the National Assembly (2) — Consti- 
tution of 1 790 ; abolition of fnonarchy ; National Convention ; 
execution of the King {2) — Reign of Terror; Robespierre; estab- 
lishment of the Directory {7.)— foreign zuars of the Republic ; 7'ise 
of Napoleon Buonaparte {"z) — annexations in Germany, Italy, and 
the Netherlands ; .wars in Szvitzerland and Egypt (2) — Buonaparte 
seizes the chief power as Consul ; character of his rule ; treaties of 
Luneville ajtd Amiens [2, 3) — Buonaparte calls himself Emperor 
of the French and King of Italy (3) — conquests of Buonaparte ; 
his dependent Kings (3) — he invades Rttssia ; liberation of Ger- 
many {z)~~fa^^ ^f Buonaparte ; his return from Elba; battle of 
Waterloo ; his final overthroiv (3) — effects of the French Reruoluiion 
in Germany ; abolition of the Empire ; title of Emperor of 
Austria; the new Kings ; the Confederation of the Rhine {^) — 
Buonapartd s victories over Prtissia and Austria ; greatest extent 
■ of Buonaparti s dominion hi Germany (5) — -forfnation of the Ger- 
man Confederation [^)— changes vi Italy ; its resettlement at the 
Peace [6] — dealings of Buonaparte with Spain ; yoseph Buonaparte 
made King ; campaigns of the Dtike of Wellington; return of 
Ferdinand the Seventh (7) — King John of Portugal goes to Brazil ; 
liberation of Portugal (7) — changes in the Netherlands ; union of 
the zvhole Netherlands into one Kingdom (8) — the French in 
Switzerland ; the Helvetic Republic ; the Act of Mediation; for- 
mation of the Swiss Confederation (9) — share of England in the 
general War ; bombardment of Copenhagen (10) — rebellion in 
Ireland ; Union of Great Britain and Ireland {id) — war with the 
United States ; settlement at the Peace (10) — Russian conquest of 



326 THE. FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap. 

Finland ; election of Bernadotte in S%veden ; union of Sweden and 
No)"way (li) — a fail's of Denmark (ll) — reigns of Paul and 
Alexander in Russia (12) — Peace of Til'sit ; wars with Sweden, 
Turkey, and Persia (12) — French invasion of Russia ; Kingdo77i 
of Poland united with Russia (12) — decay of the Turkish E7npire ; 
independence of Servia, Egypt, and other provinces ; Turkish wars 
with France and Russia ; accession of Mahmoud (13) — English 
conquests in India ; colonizatio7t of Australia (14) — revohttions of 
Hayti (14) — growth of the United States ; purchase of Louisiana ; 
.abolition of slavery in the Norther 11 States (15) — Summary (16). 

1. Character of the Time. — We have now come, we may 
ahnost say, to our own tmies, to times which old people still 
living can remember. And these times are times so full of 
matter that it would be vain to try to do more here than to 
point out the general effect which the events which then hap- 
pened had en the relations of the states of Europe to one 
another. It was a time which saw such an upsetting of the 
existing state of things everywhere as had never happened 
before in so short a space of time. The centre of every- 
thing during this time is France j and in France at this time 
men did what had never been done before ; that is, they 
went on the fixed principle of changing everything, whether 
it were good or bad, wherever their power reached, both in 
their own country and elsewhere. There was a general 
change of everything, often out of a mere love of change, 
and there was in particular a silly way of imitating old 
Greek and Roman names and ways, even when they were 
nothing to the purpose. But in this general crash the evil 
of the older times was largely swept away as well as the 
good, and means were at least given for a better state of 
things to begin in our own time, 

2. The French Republic. — The events of the French 
Revolution must be told in the special History of France. It 
is enough to say here that Lewis the Sixteenth, the grandson 



XVI.] THE FRENCH REPUBLIC. 327 

of Lewis the Fifteenth, who succeeded him in 1774, had to 
pay the penalty of the misgovernment of so many Kings who 
had gone before him, and above all of the last two. Now that 
there was such a spirit of thought and speculation about in the 
world, men could no longer bear the abuses of the old French 
system of government, the absolute power of the King and 
the monstrous privileges of the nobles and clergy. The 
finances of the country too were in utter disorder, and 
generally there was need of reform in everything. Lewis the 
Sixteenth, an honest and well-intentioned man, but not strong 
enough for the place in which he found himself, tried hard to 
make things better, though perhaps not always in the wisest 
way. At last, in 1789, the States-General were called to- 
gether, which had not met since 16 14. They were presently 
changed into a National Asseinbly, which made the greatest 
changes in everything, abolishing all the old privileges, and 
giving all things as it were a fresh start. Among other 
things they wiped out the old provinces, so many of which 
had once been independent states, and divided the whole 
country into depa7'tme7its, called in a new-fashioned w^ay 
after rivers and mountains. The small part of Elsass which 
remained independent, and the territories of Venaissin and 
Avignon in the old Kingdom of Burgundy, which belonged 
to the Popes, were now finally swallowed up by France. 
Then came a time of great confusion and rapid changes. 
In 1790 a new constitution was made, by which the King's 
power was made very small indeed, but the old title of 
King of the French was revived. In 1792 monarchy was 
abolished, and France became a Republic under the National 
Convention J in the next year the King was beheaded, and 
now religion and everything else was swept away. Now 
came the Reign of Te7'rorj one party after another as it rose 
to power put its enemies to death. Among the men who had 
the chief hand in this general destruction was the famous 



328 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap. 

Robespierre. He was a native oi Arras in Artois, but, owing 
to the conquests of Lewis the Fourteenth in the Netherlands, 
his country was now French. But before long a time of 
rather more quiet began under the Directory. Meanwhile 
France was at war with many of the powers of Europe ; for 
Kings began to be afraid of the example of France spreading. 
In 1790 war began with the Emperor and the King of Prussia, 
and, directly after the King's execution in 1793, war was 
declared against Englaitd also. Thus began the long Wars 
of the French Revolutio7i, in which almost every part of 
Europe took a part at one time or another, and which went 
on, with some stoppages, till 18 15. The first part of the war 
may be looked on as lasting till 1797. It went on in the 
Austrian Netherlands, along the Rhine, and in Italy, and it 
was in the Italian part of the war that Napoleon Buonaparte 
began to make himself famous. He too, like Robespierre, 
was a Frenchman only through the annexations of France, 
being an Italian of Corsica who had to learn the French 
language. His victories in Italy forced the Emperor Francis 
to give up the Austrian Netherlands to France, and Piedinont 
and Savoy were also annexed. This was the way in which 
things went on during the whole time ; sometimes territories 
were actually added to France ; sometimes they were made 
into separate states, nominal republics, which were altogether 
dependent on France. But for the old republics of Europe, 
whether aristocratic or democratic, no more respect was shown 
than for Popes or Kings. As the Emperor had given up so 
large a territory to France, to get something in exchange, he 
joined the French in destroying the ancient commonwealth 
of Venice, and they divided its dominions between them. 
France was wishing to get a power in the east of Europe, 
and therefore took the Ionian Islands as part of her share. 
Then, in 1798, Buonaparte planned an expedition to Egypt, 
and, to get money, the Directory attacked Switzerland, be- 



XVI.] RISE OF BUONAPARTE. 329 

cause Bern was known to have a large treasure. Presently, 
in 1799, another war began against the Emperor, who was 
helped by Russia j this war chiefly went on in Switzerland. 
At home the Directory greatly mismanaged things, and, 
when Buonaparte came back the same year, he was easily 
able to upset it and to take all power into his own hands. An 
old Greek would have said that he made himself Tyratitj but, 
after the fashion of calling everything by Roman names, he 
first called himself Consul and then Emperor; he had a 
Seriate and what not, being in truth a still more absolute 
ruler than ever Lewis the Fourteenth had been. 

3. Napoleon Buonaparte. — Buonaparte was now master 
of France, and he came nearer to being master of Europe 
than any other one man had done before. For fifteen years 
the whole continent was in confusion. Kings and kingdoms 
being set up and put down again pretty much as it pleased 
him. But in France itself, though his rule was altogether 
despotic, and though in the end he made himself hateful by 
draining all the resources of the country for his endless wars, 
there can be no doubt that the land gained by having a 
time of quiet after the disorders of the Revolution. He 
restored the Christian religion, and, like Justinian, put out a 
code of laws for his dominions. During the time when he 
called himself Consul, peace was made with the Empire at 
Luneville in 1801, and with England ' at Amie?is in 1802. 
By the former peace all Germany left of the Rhine was 
given up to France. The Rhine was in the Roman times 
the boundary between independent Germany and the Roman 
province of Gaul; but the modern kingdom of France had 
never come anywhere near the Rhine till the annexations 
began in Elsass. But now France got the Rhine frontier 
from Basel to its mouth, or we might say, from its 
source to its. mouth ; for Switzerland was now merely a 
French dependency. In 1804 Buonaparte called himself 



330 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap. 

Emperor of the French^ and he crowned himself at Paris, 
sending for the Pope to anoint him. In this his object was 
to give himself out as the successor of Charles the Great 
not merely as the successor of any of the local Kings of 
France. For it was of course part of his plan that men 
should look, as Frenchmen commonly do, on the great 
German Emperor as a Frenchman. It shows how tho- 
roughly the old notion of the Empire had died out, when 
such a pretence could have any effect on men's minds. 
Since Buonaparte's time the title of E7nperor^ which once 
meant so much, has ceased to have any particular meaning. 
Everybody that chooses now calls himself an Emperor ; 
the title has even been borne by several adventurers in 
Mexico and the West Indies. But, besides calling him- 
self Emperor of the French, Buonaparte made part of 
Northern Italy into a Kingdom, and called himself King of 
Italy in imitation of the old Emperors. No King of Italy 
had been crowned since the Emperor Charles the Fifth was 
crowned at Bologna, but now Buonaparte was crowned 
again the next year at Milan as King of Italy. Before he 
had taken up these titles, he was again at war with England, 
and he planned an invasion of the island, which he never 
carried out. For the power of France by sea was broken by 
the great naval battle of Trafalgar against the English ; 
from this time Buonaparte did much as he pleased by land, 
but the smallest arm of the sea stopped him everywhere. 
Meanwhile his great land campaigns spread with little 
stoppage over the years from 1805 to 1809. He now 
brought the greater part of Western Europe more or less 
under his power. He set up his brothers and other de- 
pendents as Kings of Spain, Naples, Holland, and else- 
where, and he moved them from one kingdom to another, 
or joined their dominions on to France, just as he thought 
good. He cut short the dominions both of Prussia and 



XVI.] VERTHRO W OF B UONAPAR TE. 331 

Austria, and made himself really master of the rest of 
Germany, joining what he pleased to France, and calhng 
nimself Pi^otector of the rest. In 181 1 his power stood at 
its height. What he called the F7'ench Empire took in 
France with all its old conquests, Germany west of the 
Rhine, the Netherlands and the United P?'ovinces, and 
North-west Germany also, so that the French frontier 
took in Hamburg and Lubeck, and reached to the Baltic. 
At the other end it took in all Western Italy, including 
Rome ; the remainder belonged to the Kijtgdoin of Italy, of 
which Buonaparte called himself King. Beyond the Ha- 
driatic a large territory, made up of the former possessions 
of Austria and Venice and the Republic of Ragusa, was 
also part of the French Empire. The Ki7tgdom of Naples 
was held by his brother-in-law Miirat, but Sicily and Sar- 
dinia were still held by their own Kings, because they were 
islands, and the British fleet could help them. Denmark was 
his ally, and Spain was under his brother. But presently de- 
liverance began to come from two quarters. In 18 12 Buona- 
paite thought good to invade Russia,\m\. the chmate fought 
against him as well as the people, and he had to come back 
the next year, for the first time, utterly discomfited. The next 
year, 181 3, Germany \i^g2.X). to rise against him, rather by a 
common impulse of the people than by any act of the govern- 
ments. But A ustria, Prussia, Sweden, and most of the smaller 
German states, gradually joined against him. Germany was 
now set free in the great battle of Leipzig. Meanwhile, ever 
since 1808, when Joseph Buonaparte had been sent to be 
King of Spain, the British troops had been engaged in the 
dehverance of the peninsular kingdoms. Now it was that 
the Duke of Wellington won his great victories over several 
of Buonaparte's best generals. In 18 14 the Allies entered 
France on both sides, the English from the south, the other 
powers from the east Several battles were fought at both 



332 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap, 

ends of the country. At last Paris was taken, Buonaparte 
abdicated, and he was allowed to hold the little island oi Elba, 
keeping the title of Emperor. The French people were now 
quite weary of him, and they gladly welcomed the restora- 
tion of the old royal family in the person of the last King's 
brother, who called himself Lewis the Eighteenth. But 
in the next year, 1815, Buonaparte came back; he was 
received by the army, and reigned again for a few months, 
till the Allies again gathered their forces, and he was over- 
thrown for ever by the English and Prussians at Waterloo. 
He now abdicated again, but this time he was not trusted 
to remain anywhere in Europe, but was kept in ward for 
the rest of his days in the island of Saiftt Helena, a British 
possession in the Atlantic between Africa and America. The 
wars of the French Revolution were now over. By a series 
of treaties made at Paris and Vienna, the boundaries of the 
different states of Europe were settled afresh, and France 
had to give up the conquests which she had made during 
the republic and in the time of Buonaparte. The boundaries 
of the restored kingdom did not greatly differ from what 
they had been, before the wars of the Revolution began. 

4. The Fall of the Empire. — The part of Europe which, 
next to France itself, was most affected by the French Revolu- 
tion was Germany. The changes in Italy were in themselves 
equally great, but Italy had already been partitioned out over 
and over again, while Germany had never before fallen under 
a foreign dominion. It was during this time that the old state 
of things, and the old ideas which had lasted so long, came 
finally to an end. The Roman E7npi7'e and the Kingdo?n oj 
Germany were now abolished even in name. First of all, as 
we have seen, the Austrian Netherlands, which were now 
pretty well separated from the Empire, and all Germany 
west of the Rhine, including the three gre.at Archbishop- 
ricks of Mainz, Koln, and Trier, and the ^Id royal city of 



XVI.] THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE. 333 

Aachen, were all added to France. Meanwhile the princes 
who lost their dominions by the Peace of Lzmeville were 
allowed to make up for it at the cost of the bishopricks 
and free cities east of the Rhine, and a new electorate of 
Hcssen-Cassel was made, whose Elector, as it turned out, 
never had any one to elect. In 1804, as soon as Buonaparte 
began to call himself Emperor of the French, Francis the 
Second, being Emperor-elect of the Romans and King of 
Germany, began to call himself Hereditary Emperor of 
Austi'ia, whatever that meant. And in 1805, after the war 
had begun again and after the Austrians and Russians 
had lost the great battle of Austerlitz, the Emperor made 
a treaty with Buonaparte at Pressburg, which is drawn up 
between the Empej^or of Germany and Austria and the 
Emperor of the French and King of Italy. It was time 
that the Empire should come to an end when its chief had 
in this way forgotten who he was. And so it happened 
within two years. Many of the German princes had by this 
time joined Buonaparte. They declared themselves indepen- 
dent of the Empire, and they began to call themselves by 
higher titles. King of Bavaria, King of Wurttemberg, and 
so forth. They then made themselves into the Confedera- 
tion of the Rhine, which was put under the protection 
of Buonaparte, and they added to their dominions such of 
the remaining free cities and smaller principalities as 
they thought good. This was in 1806, and in the same 
year the Emperor Francis formally resigned the Empire 
altogether, and no Roman Emperor has since been chosen 
Thus the old Kingdojn of Germany, which had gone on ever 
since the division of the dominions of Charles the Great, 
and the Roman Empire, which had gone on in one shape or 
another ever since Augustus Caesar, came at last to an end. 
The Kingdo7n of Burgundy was now wholly forgotten, and 
all of it was now either annexed to France or, being part of 



334 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap. 

Switzerland, was quite under French influence. As for the 
third kingdom, that of Italy, we have seen that Buonaparte 
called himself by its name, though by the Treaty of Press^ 
burg he promised that France and Italy should not be joined 
again after his time. Thus all traces of the old state of 
things passed away. But the former Emperor Francis still 
went on calling himself E7nperor of Atistria, and his suc- 
cessors in the Kingdom of Hungary, the Archduchy of 
Austria, and his other hereditary dominions, have gone on 
doing so ever since. 

5. The Settlement of Germany. — The union of the Ger- 
man States, which had been so lax ever since the Peace of 
Westphalia, now quite passed away. Buonaparte had now to 
deal with the separate states which had not submitted to him. 
Prtissia had made a separate peace long before, and now, in 
1 806, the King Frederick Williajn the Third made a league 
with France by which he obtained the Electorate oi Hanover, 
which belonged to the King of Great Britain. But the yoke 
of the French alliance was too hard to bear, and war broke 
out between France and Prussia, in which Prussia was sup- 
ported by Saxony. Now came the great battle of Jena^ in 
which the Prussians and their allies were utterly defeated. 
Saxony now gave way, and the Elector was made King 
and joined the Confederation of the Rhine. In the next 
year Prussia was cut short at the Peace of Tilsit j her 
western dominions and some other districts were made 
into a Kingdom of Westphalia, 01 which Buonaparte made 
his brother Jerome King, while the Polish possessions of 
Prussia, except West Prussia, were made into a Grand 
Duchy of Warsaw, which was given to the new King of 
Saxony. Austria meanwhile, having again ventured on war 
in 1 809, was overthrown at Wagram, and had to yield her 
south-western dominions to France and Bavaria, being thus 
quite cut off from Italy and the Hadriatic. Lastly, North- 



XVI,] THE GERMAN CONFEDERA TION. 335 

western Germany, including the free cities of Lilbeck, Bremen, 
and Hamburg, was altogether joined on to France. To 
crown all, the German states were made to send men 
to help in Buonaparte^s attack on Russia. Then, in 18 13, 
came the uprising of the German people, which the German 
governments had to join one after another. And lastly, in 
1 81 5, at the Congress of Vienna the state of Germany 
was finally settled as it stayed till a few years back. There 
was no longer an Emperor or a King of Germany, but 
the German princes and free cities, of which last four only, 
Lubeck, Bre?nen, Hamburg, and Frankfurt, were left, formed 
themselves by a lax Federal tie into the German Confedera- 
tion. Many of the small States were swallowed up, and the 
boundaries of all were settled afresh. And it should be 
marked that several of the chief princes who were members 
of the Confederation joined it for parts of their dominions, 
but not for all. Francis of Austria, who had been Emperor, 
and his successors, were to be Presidents of the Confedera- 
tion; they joined it for the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Arch- 
duchy of Austria, the County of Tyrol, &c., but not for the 
Kingdom of Hungary or their other dominions out of Germany, 
So the greater part of the Prussian dominions were within 
the Confederation, but the Kingdom of Prussia itself, that is 
East Prussia and the Polish provinces, lay out of it. So too 
the Kings of Great Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands 
— a new kingdom to be presently spoken of — were mem- 
bers of the Confederation for Hanover (which was now 
called a kingdom), Holstein and Lauenburg, and Liizelburg 
severally. The German princes whom Buonaparte had set 
up as Kings, those of Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, and Saxony, 
kept their titles ; but as the King of Saxony had stuck to 
Buonaparte as long as he could, a large part of his kingdom 
was added to Prussia. All the princes promised free consti- 
tutions to their people, but most of them forgot to give them. 



336 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap. 

6. Italy. — Italy was as much tossed to and fro during 
these times as Germany. It is hardly worth while to mention 
all the little commonwealths and principalities which were 
set up and put down. The first conquests from Austria and 
Venice were made into the Cisalpine Republic, which was 
afterwards changed into Buonaparte's Kingdom of Italy. A 
large part, at last taking in Rome itself, was, after many 
shiftings, a Ligurian Republic, a Kingdom of Etri^ria, and 
what not, joined on to France, and the Pope, Pius the 
Seventh, was got into Buonaparte's power. In the wSouth, 
first Buonaparte's brother Joseph and then his brother-in- 
law Mui-at held the Kingdom of Naples. When things were 
settled in 1815, the princes who had lost their dominions 
came back again. The King of the Two Sicilies, who had 
all along kept the island, got back the continental kingdom 
also. So the King of Sardinia got back Piedmont and 
Savoy, and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the lesser 
principalities were set up again, and the Pope again held 
Rome and his old temporal dominions. But the common- 
wealths were not set up again. Lucca became a Duchy ; 
Genoa was joined on to Piedmont, and the Duchy of Milan 
and the Venetian dominions, which had changed their names 
so often, were made into the Kingdom of Lombardy ana 
Ve7iicc, and joined on to Austria. Only little San Marino 
kept its freedom. Thus Germany and Italy both remained 
disunited, cut up among a number of absolute princes. But 
there was this difference between them : the German princes 
were Germans, and the country had a certain unity, however 
lax, in the Confederation. But Italy was altogether cut up. 
A large part was held by Austria and by the Pope, and the 
other Kings and Dukes were not real Italian princes, birt: 
all looked to Austria as their chief. Piedmont indeed was 
held by a native prince, but its government still was despotic. 
This was the third time — under Charles the Fifth, under 



XVI.] ITALY, SPAIN, ETC. 337 

Charles the Sixth, and again under Francis the Second — 
that the House of Austria had the chief power in the Itahan 
peninsula. 

7. Spain and Portugal. — Under Charles the Third, who 
had been King of the Two Sicilies, Spain went on greatly 
recovering itself, as it had done before under Philip the Fifth. 
In the reign of Charles the Fourth, under the administration of 
Godoy, when the French Revolution began, Spain at first acted 
against France ; but afterwards, in 1796, she joined France 
against England and Portugal, as she did again when war 
broke forth once more in 1 803. Buonaparte presently began to 
meddle in Spanish affairs, and he caused the King to abdicate 
in 1807. He then moved his brother Joseph from Naples to 
Spain, but the patriotic Spaniards proclaimed Ferdinand the 
Seventh, the son of the late King, though he was actually in 
Buonaparte's hands. Then came the great struggle in which 
the French were finally driven out of the Peninsula by the 
English victories. In 18 14 the lawful King Ferdinand came 
back, but he overthrew the free constitution which had 
been made during his captivity, and reigned as an absolute 
monarch. Meanwhile Portugal, the old ally of England, 
was overrun by the French, and John the Sixth, the King or 
rather Regent for his mother Maria, left Portugal for the 
great Portuguese colony of Brazil, where he went on reign- 
ing, and did not return to Portugal till after the peace. The 
Portuguese at home meanwhile shared in the war of inde- 
pendence along with the English and Spaniards. 

8. The Netherlands. — The Austrian Netherlands, as we 
have seen, were conquered and joined to France, with which 
they remained united till the Peace. The Seven United 
Provinces were in 1795 turned into a dependent common- 
wealth called the Batavian Republic, which in 1806 was 
turned into a kingdom for Buonaparte's brother Lewis. But 
in 1 8 10 Buonaparte took his brother away, and joined 



338 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap. 

Holland and the other provinces to France. At the Peace 
the whole Netherlands^ except the districts which had been 
conquered by Lewis the Fourteenth, which France was allowed 
to keep, were formed into a Kingdoin of the Netherlajtds, 
under William Prince of Ora7tge, who also held the Cirand 
Duchy of Liiselburg or Luxemburg within the Gemian 
Confederation. 

9. Switzerland. — The old state of things in Switzerland^ 
the Confederation of the Thirteen Cantons surrounded by 
their allied and subject states, went on till 1798, when the 
French came to seize the treasure at Bern. This had the 
good effect of releasing the Romance-speaking people of 
Vaud from the yoke of Bern, but the French went on to 
invade the democratic cantons also. They now set up what 
they called the Helvetic Republic, which took in the old 
cantons and most of their allies and subjects. But they 
were no longer to be a Federal state in which each 
member is independent in its internal affairs ; the Helvetic 
Republic was a single commonwealth in which the cantons 
were no more than departments. Geneva and some other of 
the allied districts were added to France, some now, and 
some afterwards in Buonaparte's time. But, as the new 
Republic did not suit the Swiss people, who were used to 
a Federal constitution, Buonaparte in 1803, by the Act of 
Mediation, gave them a better constitution, in which the 
old cantons and several new ones were joined together as 
separate states, but on equal terms, without the old distinc- 
tions of confederates, allies, and subjects. Now for the first 
time there were independent Romance- speaking cantons as 
distinguished from allies and subjects. Buonaparte kept 
Switzerland altogether dependent on France, but on the whole 
he treated it somewhat better than he did other countries. 
At the peace, Geneva and the other districts which had 
been joined on to France were set free, and the Swiss Con- 



XVI.] GREAT BRITAIN. 339 



federation of twenty-two cantons was formed, though with 
very lax union among themselves. The neutrality of the 
Confederation was acknowledged, as was also that of the 
northern part of Savoy, which had once belonged to Bern. 
This, with the rest of Savoy, went back to the King of 
Sardinia, and it was not to be given away to any power 
except Switzerland. 

10. Great Britain and Ireland. — The external history of 
this nation chiefly consists of the long war with France, 
with the short stoppage after the Peace of Amiens. England 
was the one enemy whom Buonaparte could never cajole or 
win over, as, at one time or another, he did all the powers of 
the Continent. She was the object of his special hatred, and 
he did all that he could to ruin her trade, by forbidding, when 
he was at the height of his power after the Peace of Tilsit, 
all dealings between England and any continental state. 
But England kept her power by sea, and, except the great 
campaigns of the Duke of Wellington in Spain and Portugal, 
it was by sea that the English share in the war was carried 
on. The great victories of Nelson, at the mouth of the Nile 
in 1798 and at Trafalgar in 1805, aUogether broke the naval 
power of France, and of Spain, which at Trafalgar was joined 
with France. Equally successful, but less righteous, were 
the two attacks on Denjnark in 1801 and 1806, in which 
latter Copenhagen was bombarded. Meanwhile there was a 
rebeUion in Ireland in 1798, the suppression of which was 
followed by the union of the Kingdom and Parliament of 
Ireland y^ith. that of Great Britain in 1800, when the title of 
King of France, vM.(^ had been borne ever since the time of 
Edward the Third, was at last dropped. Towards the end 
of the great war with France there was unhappily a war with 
the United States from 1813 to 1815. By the final Peace 
England, as usual, kept large distant conquests, but she 
gained no territory in Europe, except the island of Malta^ 

Z 2 



340 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap. 

whicli, up to the French Revolution, had belonged to the 
Knights of Saint John^ and that of the Frisian island of 
Heligoland^ a possession of Denmark. The Ionian Islands 
also, part of the old Venetian dominion in Greece, were made 
into a Republic, under a protectorate on the part of England 
which did not differ much from actual sovereignty. 

II. The Scandinavian Kingdoms. — At the beginning of 
the French Revolution the reigning King of Sweden, Gusta- 
vus the Third, was engaged in a war with Russia, which led 
to no change on either side. He also increased the royal 
power, but he was murdered in 1792. The next King, Gusta- 
vus the Fourth, was more zealous than anybody else against 
Buonaparte and the French, but he had no means of doing 
any great things, and he contrived to offend all other powers 
and his own subjects as well. Russia now conquered all 
Finland, and in 1809 the King was deposed and the free con- 
stitution was restored, without either the despotism or the 
oligarchy which had of late prevailed by turns. As the new 
King, Charles the Thirteenth, had no children, the Swedes 
chose Bernadotte, one of Buonaparte's generals, to be Crown 
Prince and to succeed to the kingdom at his death. In 1813 
Bernadotte joined in the war of liberation in Germany, and 
led the Swedish troops against his old master. As Sweden 
had taken the part of the Allies, while Denniark had been 
on the side of France, it was settled at the peace that Nor- 
way^ which had all this time been joined to Denmark, should 
be joined to Sweden, to make up for the loss of Finland, 
which was kept by Russia. But the Norwegians withstood 
this arrangement; they chose a Danish prince for their 
King, and they made themselves the freest constitution of 
any state in the world that has a King at all. They were 
so far conquered that they had to accept the union with 
Sweden, but they were joined only as a perfectly indepen- 
dent kingdom, keeping its new constitution. Meanwhile 



XVI.] RUSSIA AND POLAND. 341 



Demnark still remained an absolute monarchy. When the 
Empire came to an end, Denmark incorporated its German 
duchy of Holstein with the kingdom. At the Peace Den- 
mark obtained the small piece of Pomerania which was held 
by Sweden ; but this was presently given up to Prussia in 
exchange for the Duchy of Lauenhirg, and the King of 
Denmark became a member of the German Confederation 
for the Duchies of Holstei7i and Lauenbiirg. 

12. Russia and Poland.— After the death of Catharine 
the Second in 1796, her son Paul succeeded. In his time 
the Russian armies acted with those of Austria in the cam- 
paigns of Italy and Switzerland, but Paul soon afterwards 
made a separate peace with Buonaparte. Paul seems to have 
been quite mad, and he was murdered in 1801. His son 
Alexander remained at peace with France till 1805, when he 
again joined with Austria, but, after the overthrow of both 
Austria and Prussia, he made peace with Buonaparte at 
Tilsit, and a small part of the Lithuanian possessions of 
Prussia was added to Russia. Alexander and Buonaparte 
seemed to have pretty well agreed to divide Europe between 
them as if they were to be the Eastern and Western 
Emperors. Russia and France remained at peace for six 
years, during which time Finland was conquered from 
Sweden and a war was waged with the Turks, in which the 
Russian frontier was advanced to the Danube, much as, long 
before, the French frontier had reached the Rhine. By another 
war which went on at the same time with Persia, Russia 
gained a large territory in the land between the Euxine and 
Caspian Seas. At last, in 18 12, came the French i?tva- 
sion of Russia, which led to the fall of Buonaparte, and 
Russia took a leading part in the last wars in which he was 
overthrown. At the general Peace the Grand Duchy of 
Warsaw, which Buonaparte had formed out of the Polish 
provinces of Prussia, and to which the Polish territory 



342 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap. 

gained by Austria at the last partition had been added, 
was taken away from the King of Saxony. The Grand 
Duchy of Posen was given back to Prussia. The rest 
was made into a Kiiigdojn of Polajtd, with a constitution 
of its own, which was united with Russia as a separate 
state, hke Sweden and Norway, or hke Great Britain and 
Ireland just before the union. The city of Cracow, the 
old capital of Poland, which stood at the meeting of the 
dominions of the three powers, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, 
was made into a separate commonwealth, under the protec- 
tion of all of them. The new Kingdom of Poland did not 
differ very much in extent from the old kingdom before its 
union with Lithuania and its conquests from Prussia. It 
did not take in all that had belonged to the old Poland, but 
it took in some other lands which had not been part of it. 

13. The Turks. — Sultan Selim the Third came to the 
throne in 1789, while Turkey was engaged in the war with 
Russia and Austria which was ended by the Peace of J assy. 
He had to struggle against enemies on every side. The 
Turkish power had now got very weak, and many of the 
subject nations. Christian and Mahometan, were seeking for 
independence. Many of the distant Pashas in Europe and 
Asia seemed likely to set up for themselves, just as happened 
at the breaking up of the Caliphate and of the Mogul Empire. 
Especially the Christians of Servia revolted in 1806 under 
Czerni George (that is, Black George). Servia was conquered 
again in 1813, but in 181 5 it again revolted under Milosh 
Obrenowits, and it was after a while acknowledged as a 
separate, though in some degree dependent, state, as it still 
remains. And in Czernagora or Mojttefiegro, the small moun- 
tain land on the borders of the old Turkish and Venetian 
possessions, the Christians had never submitted, and they 
kept up a constant warfare with the Turks. So did the 
Christian Suliots in Epeiros and their Mahometan neighbour 



XVI.] RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 343 

A li Pasha of Joannina ; and the Mamelukes in Egypt were 
practically independent. In the midst of all this came the 
successive French and Russian wars, and it was of course 
the interest of Russia to stir up discontent everywhere among 
the subject nations, and especially to put herself forward as 
the protector of all who belonged to the Eastern Church. 
In the war with France both Russia and England naturally 
took the Turkish side, and it was by English help that the 
French were driven out of Syria and Egypt. In the war 
with Russia, equally naturally as things stood then, England 
was on the Russian and France on the Turkish side. But 
Selim, who was a reformer, was deposed in 1807 and pre- 
sently murdered, and then came Mahmond the Secojid, 
whose reign lasted till •1839, taking in great events which 
will come in the next chapter. 

14. British Possessions abroad. — It was during this time 
that the English dominion was practically spread over nearly 
all India. During the administrations of the Marqicess Corjt- 
wallis and the Marquess Wellesley as Governors-General, 
the greater part of the country was either annexed to the 
English dominions or brought wholly under British influence. 
In the course of the war large conquests were also made 
among the French, Dutch, and Spanish possessions, and by 
these means England acquired Ceylon, the great colony of 
the Cape of Good Hope, the Mauritius or Isle of Fi'ance^ 
several of the West India islands, and a small territory in 
South America. Colonization was also beginning \xi Austra- 
lia and in the neighbouring island of Tas77ia7iia or Van 
Diemen's Land. Meanwhile we may mention, though it did 
not happen in any British colony, that in the island of Saint 
Domingo, Hispaniola, or Hayti, which, at the beginning of 
the ReA^olution, was held partly by France and partly by 
Spain, the negroes in both parts set up for themselves. A 
number of revolutions followed in imitation of those in 



344 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [chap. 

Europe ; sometimes republics were set up, while sometimes 
a successful negro called himself Emperor in Hayti, just as 
Buonaparte did in France. 

15. The United States. — The new Constitution of the 
Ufiited States came into force in the same year that the 
French Revolution began, and for about sixty years a remark- 
able succession of able rulers filled the office of President. 
The republic grew and prospered, and a great number of 
new States arose, especially in the lands to the West. But 
one territory was added in a different way. Spain had now 
given up her possessions in Louisiana to France, and in 
1803 the whole of the French possessions in North America 
were bought by the United States. The States thus gained, 
not only the territory which forms the present State of 
Louisiana, but a claim to all the lands beyond the Missis- 
sippi lying south of the British and north of the Spanish 
settlements. Out of this territory a great number of new 
States have gradually been made. During this time too 
negro slavery was done av/ay with in the Northern States 
of the Union, but not in the Southern. Out of this dif- 
ference mainly came the disputes between the Northern 
and Southerti States which have been so important in late 
years. 

16. Summary. — Thus, in the space of about five-and-twenty 
years, Europe was more changed than it had ever been before 
in the same space of time. The great wonder of these times 
was that, in France itself and in all the countries which were 
brought altogether under French influence, old ideas and 
old institutions were utterly swept away in a way that never 
happened at any other time. It followed of course that much 
that was good and much that was bad perished together. 
France itself since the Revolution has never had a govern- 
ment of any kind that could last for any time. But, on the 
other hand, none of the ever-shifting French governments 



XVI.] SUMMARY. 345 

have brought in anything hke the abuses and oppressions of 
the old monarchy. So in other countries, where the old 
governments went on or where the kings came back again at 
the general peace, though the restored princes often forgot 
their promises and went on reigning as despots, yet men 
in general had learned lessons which they never forgot, and 
which bore fruit afterwards. Even where there was no great 
political change, there was a wide social change ; and we 
may say generally that, since the French Revolution, there 
has been no part of Europe where the people have been so 
utterly down-trodden as they were in many parts before. 
Thus serfage^ answering to villainage in the old times in 
England, has been abolished wherever it still went on, 
though in Russia this has been only done quite lately by 
the present Emiperor. And, though no man ever did more 
than both Buonaparte himself and the Allies who overthrew 
him in parting out nations to this and that ruler v/ithout 
asking their leave, yet during all this time ideas were grow- 
ing up which have taught men that such things should not 
be done. So again, though the union both of Germany and 
of Italy was not to happen at once, yet the wars of Buona- 
parte led men in both countries in different ways to feel 
more strongly than they had ever felt before that all Ger- 
mans and all Italians were really countrymen, and that they 
ought to be more closely joined together. As for particular 
changes, F7'ance came out at the end of the war with nearly 
the same boundaries and under the same dynasty which she 
had at the beginning, but with her internal state utterly 
changed. E7tgland had raised her own position in Europe 
to the highest pitch ; her European territory had been in- 
creased only by a small island or two, but she had vastly 
increased her colonial dominions. Germany had changed 
in everything ; the Empire was gone, and, after the time of 
confusion, a lax Confederation had at last arisen, in which 



346 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. [ch. xvi. 

it could not fail that the two great states of Aust?'ia and 
Prussia would strive for the mastery. Italy was still cut 
up into a crowd of small states ; Austria held a large part 
of Northern Italy, and had a commanding influence every- 
where. Spain had got back her old dynasty. Portugal 
might be said to have become a dependency of Brazil, 
instead of Brazil being a dependency of Portugal; this is 
the only case of a state of the Old World being governed 
from the New. Switzerland had got rid of the old distinc- 
tions, and a Confederation on equal terms had been made. 
The whole of the Netherlands, less happily, were joined into 
a single kingdom. Sweden finally withdrew from the lands 
east and south of the Baltic, but the whole of the greater 
Scandinavian peninsula came under one ruler, though its 
two parts remained distinct kingdoms, Norway keeping her 
new and very free constitution. Russia had grown at all 
points, and Poland had been restored in a kind of way, 
though not a way at all likely to last. In the New Woi'ld 
the great English-speaking commonwealth was fast advanc- 
ing. And this time, as commonly happens in times of great 
general stir, was a time of great inventions and of great 
writers in various ways. Germany above all now thoroughly 
awoke, and both her learned men and her original wiiters 
began to take the place whi ch they have ever since kept. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY. 

Chara,Kter of the present time ; stronger feeling of nationality ; change 
in the nature of wars (l) — revolutions in France ; reign of Lewis 
the Eighteenth ; illegal acts and deposition of Charles the Tenth ; 
Revolution of yuly (2) — reign of Louis-Philippe ; attempts of 
Louis- Napoleon Buonaparte (2) — Revohttion of February ; Louis- 
Philippe driven out; the second Republic ; administration of 
Cavaignac (2) — Louis- Napoleon Buonaparte chosen President ; he 
seizes absolute power and calls himself Emperor (2) — his wars with 
Russia and Austria ; Savoy and Nizza taken from Ltaly (3) — he 
attacks Prussia ; Prussia supported by all Germany ; victories of 
the Germans ; Buonaparte taken prisoner ; Paris taken ; Elsass 
recovered by Germany (3) — the third Republic ; the Commune of 
Paris ; administration of M. Thiers (3) — steps toivards the u7zion 
of Germany ; the Zollverein — revolutions of 1%^^ (4) — war between 
Prussia and Austria ; formation of the North-German Confederal 
tion ; Austria shut out of Germany (4) — tmion of Germany against 
France ; the southern states join the Confederation ; King William 
chosen Emperor (4) — disturbances in Ltaly ; dominion of Austria ; 
reign of Charles-Albert in Sardinia [^)— reign of Pius the Ninth; 
revolutions and zvars of 1'^^^ ; the new j^epublic suppressed {^) — 
constitutional reign of Victor- Emmanuel in Sardinia ; his second 
war with Austria; help given by France ; French attempts to divide 
Ltaly (5, 6) — the Ltalian States join Sardinia ; exploits of Gari- 
baldi ; Victor-Emtnanuel chosen King of Ltaly ; the Pope kept at 
Rome by the French (6) — Ltaly joins Prtissia agahist Austria; re- 
covery of Venice (6) — recovery of Rome (6) — 7'eign of Ferdinand thi 
Fifth of LIungary ; revolutions in LLungary and Austria; Hungary 
conquered by Russian help (7) — reforms after the war with Prussia; 



34^ REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY, [chap. 

Francis yoseph King of Hungary (7) — weakness of the Turks ; 
Greek War of Independence ; battle of Navarino ; kingdom of 
Greece (8) — -wars betzveen Turkey and Russia ; independence oj 
Egypt (9) — Crimean War ; of airs of the Danubia^t Principalities 
(9) — ttnion of Russia and Poland ; revolts of the Poles under 
Nicholas and Alexander the Second ; serfage abolished ; suppres- 
sion of the republic of Cracow (10) — reign of Ferdinand the Seventh 
in Spain ; revolts on behalf of the Constitution ; intervention oJ 
France (ii) — civil roar on the death of Ferdinand ; reign and de- 
position of Isabel ; election of Amadeus of Italy {ii) — revolutions 
and civil zvars of Portugal ; reign of Donna Maria {ii) —separa- 
tion of Belgium and the N'ctherlands ; affairs of Luxemburg (12) — ■ 
changes of government in the Swiss Cantons ; war of the Catholic 
and Protestant Cantons ; establishment of the Federal Constitution 
(13) — Denmark beco77ies a constitutional state ; disputes between 
Denmark and the Duchies ; Sleswick and Holstein joined to 
Prussia (14) — affairs of Szoeden and N^orzoay ; reforms in Sweden 
(15) — affairs of Great Britaiji ; less interference in continental 
affairs than befoi'e ; extension and increased independence of the 
British Colonies; abolition of slavery (16) — wars and mutiny in 
India ; the govc7'nment transferred from the Company to the Crown 
(16) — frm tmion of all Great Britain; troubles in Ireland ; 
measures for its benefit (16) — revolt of the Spanish colonics in 
America; revolutions of Mexico (17) — separation of Brazil from 
Portugal (18) — advance of the United States ; secession and re- 
conquest of the Sotithern States ; abolition of slavery (19) — Sum- 
mary (20). 

I. Character of the Time. — We have now come altogether 
to our own times, and there is so much to tell that we must 
iry to cut our tale very short indeed. A long time of peace 
has been followed by a time full of wars. And there is much 
to mark in these latest wars. Military science has greatly 
advanced, and the means of getting about haA^e been greatly 
improved. It has therefore followed that wars have been, on 
the one hand, carried on with much greater armies, but that, 
on the other hand, they have been brought to an end in a 



XVIL] CHARACTER OF THE TIME. 349 

much shorter time than formerly. There has been no Thirty 
Years' War, not even a Seven Years' War, in our time. There 
has also been a much stronger feehng of nationality than 
there ever was before. Some nonsense has been talked about 
this matter, because it is not always easy to say what makes 
a nation. For, though language proves more than any other 
one test, it will not always do by itself. Thus in Switze?'- 
land four languages are spoken : yet the Swiss certainly 
make one nation. But, when men thoroughly feel them- 
selves to be one nation, when they wish to come together as 
such and to get rid of the dominion of foreigners, it is clearly 
right that they should be able to do so. Now this is what 
men have been striving to do in different parts of Europe in 
our own time more than they ever did before : and this 
feeling has been shown above all things in the steps 
that have been taken for the joining together of the great 
nations of Germany and Italy, which had been so long 
split up into a number of small states. This change is the 
greatest event of our times ; but it will perhaps be better 
understood if we first run through the changes that have 
happened in France, as they have had so much to do with 
the history of the other countries, but we must tell the tale 
in as few words as may be. 

2. Revolutions in France. — After the final overthrow of 
Buonaparte, Lewis the Eighteenth came back again, and 
reigned as a constitutional King, but many of those who 
came with him would gladly have had the old state of things 
back again, when the King ruled as he pleased, and when 
the nobles and clergy were set up above the rest of the 
nation. Of this sort was his brother, the next King Charles 
the Tenth, who was the last who was crowned .at Rheims, 
and the last who called himself King of France. For when, in 
1830, he put out some ordinances which were wholly against 
the laW; the people of Paris rose, and King Charles was 



350 REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY. [chap. 



driven out in the Revolution of July. We may mark in all 
these changes how the one city of Paris always acts, and how 
the rest of France accepts what it does. This time, when 
the King was driven out, his cousin Louis-Philippe Duke oj 
Orleans was made King, with the old title of King of the 
Fre?tch, and with a freer constitution. France was not 
engaged in any great wars during the time of these three 
Kings ; only in Africa the piratical power of Algiers was put 
down, and all that part of the coast of Africa became a 
French dominion. After some revolts at Lyons and Paris 
early in his reign, Louis-Philippe reigned quietly till 1848 ; 
only twice in his reign Louis-Napoleon Buonaparte, a nephew 
of the first Buonaparte, tried to m.ake a disturbance. The 
first time he was allowed to go free ; the second time he was 
imprisoned, but he escaped. But in 1848 the King's govern- 
ment had become unpopular, and in February of that year 
he was driven out, as Charles the Tenth had been. This 
time a Republic was set up, and in June there was a second 
revolt in Paris of the more extreme republicans, which was 
put down by General Cavaignac. But when the President of 
tHe Republic was to be chosen, Louis-Na.poleon Buonaparte, 
who had been allowed to come back, was chosen by many 
votes over Cavaignac. He was chosen President for four 
years, and he swore to be faithful to the Republic. But at the 
end of the third year, in December 1 851, with the help of the 
army, he seized upon the government, as his uncle had done, 
calling himself President for ten years with nearly absolute 
power. The National Assembly, which passed a vote to 
depose him, was dissolved by force ; many men were killed, 
and others were sent to the unhealthy colony of Cayenne, 
while most .of the chief men of the country were impris-oned 
for a while. A year after, in December 1852, he called him- 
self Emperor, as his uncle had done before him. 

3. The Wars of France. — When Louis-Napoleon Buona- 



XVII.] WARS AND REVOLUTIONS OF FRANCE. 35 1 

parte took the title of Emperor, he gave out that the Empire 
should be peace, but there have been wars in Europe ever 
since, in which France has taken the chief part. In 1854, 
when a quarrel again arose between Russia and Turkey, 
France and England both joined in the war against Russia 
and shared in the victories over the Russians in the Crimea. 
In 1859, when there was a dispute between Austria and Sar- 
dinia., France made war upon Austria, and it was given out 
that France would free Italy from the Alps to the Hadriatic. 
But when the French armies reached the strong fortress of 
Verona, all that was done was to make a peace with 
Austria, by which Italy was freed only as far as the Mincio. 
At the same time the two provinces of Nizza and Savoy ^ the 
remaining Burgundian possessions of the King of Sardinia, 
were given to France. This new possession took in the 
districts whose neutrality had been guaranteed, and which, 
according to old treaties, if they ever passed from Sardinia, 
were to pass to Switzerland. Lastly, in 1870 France declared 
war upon Prussia, the reason given being that there had 
been talk of giving the Crown of Spain to a distant kins- 
man of the King of Prussia. But Prussia was supported 
by all Germany. The French crossed the German frontier, 
but they were driven out in a few days, and then the German 
armies entered France, and won a series of victories. 
Buonaparte himself became a prisoner. Meanwhile he was 
declared deposed, and a Republic was again set up in 
Paris. Paris was besieged, and surrendered to the Ger- 
mans, and a treaty was made by which, besides the pay- 
ment of a large sum of money, nearly all Elsass, together 
with that part of Lorraine where German is spoken and 
also the strong fortress of Metz, were given back to Ger- 
many. Thus Strassburg and the other German places 
which had been gradually taken by France have become 
German again, and the French frontier, which first reached 



352 REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY. [chap 

the Rhine in 1648, is now kept quite away from it. Soon 
after the peace with Germany, Paris was held by the Com- 
munists or extreme Repubhcans, and the city had again to be 
besieged and taken by the Government of the new Repubhc 
under the President M. Thiers., who was at one time chiei 
minister under King Louis-Philippe, 

4. The Union of Germany. — The German princes who 
were set up again at tlie Peace, mostly forgot their promises 
of setting up constitutional governments ; still the national 
spirit largely tended towards progress and union. And one 
great step towards it was taken as Prussia gradually, from 181 8 
onwards, became the centre of a commercial union among 
the German states, the members of which agreed to levy no 
duties on merchandise passing from one state to another, 
but to levy them only at the common frontier. This union, 
called the Zollverein, was gradually joined by most of the 
German states. In 1848 there were revolutions over the most 
part of Europe, and among them in Prussia, Austria, and 
most of the German states ; an attempt was made at the same 
time to join Germany together under an Emperor and a 
common Parliament, instead of the lax Confederation which 
had gone on since 18 15, But, before long, things came 
back much as they were before, till in 1 866 a war broke out 
between Pi'-ussia and Austria, in which the German states 
took different sides. Prussia got the better in so short a 
time that it has been called the Scve7i Weeks' War. By 
the peace which was now made Austria was shut out from 
Germany altogether, the Kingdom of Hajiover and some 
smaller states were annexed to Frtissia, and the Northern 
states were formed into the North-German Confederation, 
under the presidency of Prussia, with a common constitu- 
tion and Assembly, When France made war on Prussia 
in 1870, the Southern states took part in the war as well 
as the Northern. They soon joined the Confederation, 



XVII.] UNION OF GERMANY. 353 



Bavaria, the largest of them, keeping some special privileges 
to herself. Thus all Germany, except Aitstria, Tyrol, and 
the other German dominions of the House of Austria, 
was joined together much more closely than it had been 
ever since the Thirty Years' War, or indeed since the great 
Interregnum. And while the German siege of Paris was 
going on. King William of Prussia, being in the great hall 
of Lewis the Fourteenth at Versailles, received the title 
of German Emperor from the princes and free cities of 
Germany. And presently the German lands held by France 
were, as we have seen, joined again to the new Empire. Of 
course, in the old use of words, this was a restoration, not of 
the Empire, but of the Kingdom of Germany; for in old times, 
as we know by this time, the title of Emperor could be held 
only by one who was, or claimed to be, sovereign of either the 
Old or the New Rome. But now that several of the German 
princes are called Kings, it would have been hard to find 
a better title than Emperor for the chief of a Confederation 
which has Kings among its members. 

5. The Revolutions of Italy. — Italy can hardly be said 
to have had any history from 1815 to 1848. There were 
many conspiracies, and some insurrections., in different 
parts of Italy, especially in 1831. But the Austrian 
power was strong enough, not only to hold the Austrian 
possessions of Lombardy and Venice, but to keep the 
smaller princes on their thrones. Meanwhile the movement 
for the liberation and union of Italy was growing up in its 
north-western corner. In 1831 a new branch of the house of 
Savoy, that of Cailgnano, succeeded to the Sardinian crown 
in the person of Charles Albert. In the early part of his 
reign he ruled harshly, but he was an enemy of Austria. 
Then, in 1846, the present Pope, Pius the Ninth, Avas chosen, 
and for a while it seemed as if he were going to do great 
things for Italian freedom ; so much so that his dominions 

A A 



354 REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY. [chap. 



were partly occupied by Austria in 1847. In the course 
of 1847 and 1848, most of the Italian princes gave their 
people constitutions. Milan and Venice rose against Austria, 
and now the King of Sardinia entered the Austrian dominions 
in Italy at the head of an allied army from various parts of 
the peninsula. But he was finally defeated at Nova7^a in 
1849, 3-iid he abdicated, and was succeeded by his son Victor 
Entinanuel the Second. Meanwhile Venice, which had again 
become a republic, was recovered by Austria, Rome, whence 
the Pope had fled and where a republic had been set up, was 
overcome by troops sent by the new republic of France, and 
the constitutions in the other Italian states were withdrawn. 
Thus after 1849 Italy was left in much the same case as 
she had been in before the insurrections. The Pope was 
maintained in his dominions by French help, Austria had 
recovered her possessions, but Sardinia still remained a con- 
stitutional and advancing state, for King Victor Emmanuel 
steadily kept his word to his people. 

6. The Union of Italy. — And now, after ten years, came 
the beginnings of the great movement which has at last 
made Italy one. In 1859 there came the war between Sar- 
dinia and Austria, in which France took a part : by the 
peace Austria gave up Lombardy, but kept Venetia. France 
now tried to make what was called an Italian Confederation, 
but, as Austria was to have been a member of it, it could 
have been no real Confederation at all, and the Italians 
settled the matter themselves by most of them willingly join- 
ing themselves to the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel. Now 
it was that Garibaldi, who had before defended Rome against 
the French, wonderfully delivered the Two Sicilies, and joined 
them also to the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel. The King 
of Sardinia thus had possession of all Italy, except the part 
held by Austria, and Rome, where the French still kept the 
Pope in possession. In 1861 Victor Emmanuel was made 



XVII.] UNION OF ITALY. 355 



King of Italy by the Italian Parliament, and in 1865 the capital 
was removed to Florence, till Rome could be had. The king- 
dom had hardly been established in 186 1 when Count Cavour, 
who had had the chief hand in bringing about the new 
state of things, died. When the war broke out in 1866 be- 
tween Prussia and Azistria, Italy joined Prussia, and Austria 
gave up VeJiice and Verona, keeping however, not only the 
old Venetian possessions in Dalmatia, but Istiia, Aquileia, 
and T7'ent, Italian-speaking places which formed part of the 
ancient Kingdom of Italy. Lastly, when the war between 
France and Germany caused the French troops to be with- 
drawn from Rome, Rome was at last joined on to the Italian 
kingdom, and it now of course is the capital of Italy. The 
Pope's spiritual position remains unchanged, though he is 
no longer a temporal prince. 

7. Hungary and Austria. — Francis the First of Htmgary, 
who till 1806 had been the Emperor Francis the Second, went 
on reigning in Hungary, Austria, and his other states till 1836. 
Then came Ferdinand the Fifth. In 1847 and 1848 there 
were revolutions in Austria and Hungary as well as else- 
where. The Hungarians stood up for their ancient constitu- 
tion with certain reforms, and, when Ferdinand abdicated, 
they refused to acknowledge Francis Joseph, who succeeded 
him in Austria, because the abdication was not lawful accord- 
ing to the laws of Hungary. Afterwards they set up a republic 
under the famous Kossuth. But unluckily feuds had arisen 
between the Magyars and the other races in Hungary, and 
this greatly helped the reconquest of the country by Austria, 
which however was not done without the help of Russia. 
Hungary now remained crushed till after the war between 
Austria and Prussia. Then the government was put on a 
better and more lawful footing ; Austria and Hungary became 
two distinct states under a common sovereign, and Francis 
Joseph was lawfully crowned King of Hungary m 1867. 

A A 2 



356 REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY, [chap. 

Since then Hungary and Austria have agreed well together : 
but difficulties have arisen through the other states, Bohemia 
and the rest, asking for more or less distinct governments. 
The Aicsvrian Ejnph'e, as it is called, is in fact a mere joining 
together of various nations without any natural connexion : 
but this is the general character of South-Eastern Europe, 
and Hungary seems marked out to be the leading state 
among the Christian nations in those parts. 

8. The Deliverance of Greece. — We have seen that the 
Ottoman power had been growing weaker and weaker, while 
the subject Christian races were growing stronger. Servia 
had won her freedom, and Montenegro had never lost hers. 
In 1 82 1 the Greeks revolted. The War of Independence 
began, strangely enough, in the Danubian Principalities 
of Wallachia and Moldavia, but presently the Greeks re- 
volted in all parts of the Ottoman dominions where they 
were strong enough. In some parts they were put down 
with cruel massacres, but in the greater part of Old 
Greece the inhabitants, Greek and Albanian, with some 
little help from the other subject races and much more 
from volunteers from Western Europe, were able to hold 
their ground against the Turks. But in 1826 Sultan Mah- 
moud called in the help of the Pasha of Egypt, Mahomet 
Ali^ who had a better disciplined army than his own. His 
son Ibrahim — that is Abraham — brought the Greeks almost 
to destruction, and Peloponnesos might have been altogether 
wasted, had not the three powers, England, France, and 
Russia, stepped in and crushed the Ottoman fleet at Nava- 
7'ino, the old Pylos. in 1827. The French troops aftervi^ards 
drove the Egyptians out of Peloponnesos. The end of this 
was the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece. It has 
had two Kings, Otho of Bavaria who was turned out in 1862, 
and George of Deni7iark, and, since that time, the kingdom 
has been increased by England, in 1864, giving up the pro- 



XVII.] GREECE AND TURKEY. 357 



tectorate of the lojiian Islajids, which became part of the 
Kingdom of Greece. But the new state has not been so 
prosperous or well governed as it was once hoped that it 
might have been. It has been cooped up within a bad 
frontier, and moreover the Greeks have had their heads too 
full of the memories of the old times, and they have been too 
fond of copying the institutions of Western countries which 
are not suited to them. 

9. Turkey and Russia, — Meanwhile great changes went 
on <in the Ottoman dominions themselves, and the Turks 
had several wars with Russia and other powers. In 1826, 
Sultan Mahmoud destroyed the Janissaries, who had now be- 
come a turbulent and useless body. In 1 828 a war with Russia 
followed. The next year the Russians got as far as Hadrian- 
ople, and a treaty was made by which Russia gained some 
advantages at the mouth of the Danube and made some stipu- 
lations on behalf of the Christians in Turkey. Then followed 
wars with Mahomet AH, the Pasha of Egypt, in which several 
of the European powers took part, and which were ended in 
1 841 by Egypt becoming a nearly independent state, though 
under the superiority of the Porte. Lastly came the war 
WitYi Ridssia in 1854, in which France, England, and Sardinia 
afterwards joined on the Turkish side. It ended in 1 856 
by Russia agreeing to certain terms which lessened her 
power in the Euxine and giving up a small territory, which 
kept her away from the Danube, much as France has 
since been kept away from the Rhine. Meanwhile, as 
Greece has been altogether cut off from the Ottoman do- 
minions, and as Servia and Egypt had been made practically 
independent, so also the Principalities of Moldavia and 
Wallachia, dependent states whose position was very ano- 
malous, and which formed a constant excuse for disputes 
between Russia and Turkey, have been formed into a 
separate principality, whose connexion with Turkey is purely 



358 REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY. [chap. 

nominal. But the Roumans^ like the Greeks, have been too 
fond of iro.itating Western forms of government for which 
they are not fit. 

10. Russia and Poland. — We have seen that, by the Peace 
of 1 8 15, Poland, in the latest sense of the word, became a 
separate constitutional kingdom, to be held by the Russian 
Emperor. Such a state of things may last between two con- 
stitutional kingdoms like Sweden and Norway, where, though 
Sweden is the greater, it is not so very much greater; but it 
could not last between a huge despotic Empire and a small 
constitutional Kingdom. Disputes therefore naturally arose, 
especially after the accession oi Nicholas m 1825 ; the consti- 
tution was not carried out; so in 1831 the Poles revolted, 
declared the throne vacant, and held out for several months 
against the Russian power. But they were crushed and very 
harshly treated, and the Pohsh constitution was taken away. 
The wars between Russia and Turkey\i2iYQ been already spoken 
of ; during the great war with France and England, Nicholas 
died, and was succeeded by the present Emperor Alexander 
the Second. In his tim.e the serfs have been set free, but in 
1863 another Polish revolt was put down as harshly as the 
other, and the Polish kingdom has been quite swept away. 
In 1846 too the commonwealth of Cracow, which had been 
set up at the Peace as a sort of representative of old Poland, 
was added to the Austrian dominions. 

11. Spain and Portugal. — In Spain Ferdiitand the Seventh 
came back and refused to abide by the constitution which 
had been set up during the war v/ith Buonaparte. Several 
risings on its behalf took place, and, in 1820, it was re- 
stored. A civil war followed, and in 1822 French troops 
entered Spain to restore the King's authority. This was 
done, but not till after much- fighting, and the French did 
not leave Spain for seven years. In 1833 Ferdinand died. 
The Spanish law as to the succession of females had been 



XVII.] SFAIM AND PORTUGAL. 359 

altered backwards and forwards several times, so on Ferdi- 
nand's death there was a civil war between the partisans of 
his daughter Isabel and those of his brother Charles or Do7t 
Ca7'los. The Carlist party was strong only in the northern, 
the Basque, provinces, but the war went on a long time, 
and was not fully put an end to till 1840. Spain was now 
ruled as a constitutional state, but it has been constantly 
disturbed by insurrections of the army, and at last the mis- 
government and bad life of the Queen caused her to be 
deposed in 1868, like Mary Stewart in Scotland. Spain now 
remained for some time without a King or a settled govern- 
ment of any kind ; several candidates for the crown were 
proposed, and some wished for a commonwealth. At last, in 
1870, a son of the King of Italy, Amadeus Duke of Aosla, 
was chosen King. Owing to all these confusions, the posi- 
tion of Spain has been much lower in Europe than it was 
of old, besides the loss of its American possessions. In Por- 
tugal meanwhile a constitution was proclaimed in 1820, at the 
same time as in Spain, the King, John the Sixth, being in 
Brazil. From this till 1832 there was a time of great con- 
fusion and civil war between the absolute party under Don 
Miguel or Michael, the King's younger son, and the consti- 
tutional party under his eldest son Don Pedro or Peter, who 
succeeded in 1 826 and who presently abdicated in favour of 
his daughter J/^rZ-a;. In 1828 Don Miguel assumed the crown, 
but he was at last driven out, and the Queen was acknow- 
ledged. The strangest thing of all was that Pedro, after 
giving up the crown himself, acted as Regent for his young 
daughter. Since then there have been some disputes and 
risings in Portugal, but there has been no revolution or 
serious change. 

12. The Netherlands. — By the Peace of 181 5 all the 
provinces of the Netherlands had been made into one king- 
dom, but the Northern and Southern provinces, differing in 



36o REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY. [chap. 

religion and other things, did not well agree together ; so in 
1830 the Southern provinces revolted. Then the Kingdom 
was divided: the Northern part, which had 'been the United 
Provinces^ went on as the Kingdo77t of the Netherlands in 
the House of Oraiigcj while the formerly Spanish, and after- 
wards Austrian, Netherlands became Xho. Kingdom of Bel- 
^ium under the House of Coburg, the first King being 
Leopold, who had been husband of the Princess Charlotte 
of England. This arrangement has gone on since, only 
there have been disputes about the Duchy of Luzelbitrg or 
Liixejnburg, which was held by the King of the Netherlands 
as a member of the German Confederation, and which since 
the fall of the Confederation has been declared neutral. 

13. Switzerland. — Sivitzerla7id has remained a Federal 
state ever since the Peace in 181 5, and since that time it has 
not been engaged in war with any other state. But there have 
been great changes in its own constitution, and at one time 
there was even a civil war. About 1831 there were disputes 
in most of the Cantons, which ended in their governments 
being made much more popular, but nothing was done to 
the Federal Constitution. In 1847 a war broke out between 
the Catholic and Protestant Cantons, in which the Protes- 
tants had the better. It was now seen that the tie between 
the Cantons needed to be made much stronger, and in 1848 
a new Federal Constitution was made, in inany things very 
like that of the United States, only, instead of a single Presi- 
dent, there is a Council of Seven, with much smaller powers. 
An attempt to change this constitution, by taking away powex 
from the several Cantons and giving it to the Federal body, 
was made in 1872, but it was not carried by'^'the vote oi 
the people. 

14. Denmark and the Duchies. — Denmark remained an 
absolute monarchy till the accession of Frederick the 
Seventh in 1848, who at once gave his people a constitution. 



XVII.] SWITZERLAND, DENMARK, ETC. S^i 



Since then there have been endless disputes about the two 
Duchies held by the Danish Kings, Holstein undoubtedly 
being part of Germany, while Sleswick was not a member 
of the German Confederation and its people were partly 
German and partly Danish. A war went on from 1848 to 
1851, but this time Denmark kept both Duchies. But in 
1864, under the present King Christian the Ninth, disputes 
arose again ; a war followed, and the Duchies were given up 
by Denmark to Prussia and Austj^ia. and again in 1866 by 
Austria to Prussia alone. The northern or Danish part of 
Sleswick was to have been given back to Denmark, but this 
has not yet been done. 

15. Sweden and Norway. — At last we come to those coun- 
tries in which during all these years there has been no 
revolution or great disturbance. One is Great Britain ; 
the other is the two Scandinavian kingdoms of Sweden and 
Norway. Bernadotte, who had been already chosen Crown 
Prince of Sweden, succeeded to both kingdoms as Charles 
the Fourteenth^ and the two crowns have since stayed in 
his family. On the whole the two kingdoms have gone on 
well side by side ; having the same King, but each keeping its 
own constitution. A disposition has sometimes been shown 
to encroach on the independence of Norway, but the North- 
men have always been able to hold their own. During the 
reign of the present King improvements have been made 
in the Swedish constitution also, and greater liberty has been 
given to people of other religions than the Lutheran. 

16. Great Britain and Ireland. — No time has been more 
important in English history than this last of which we are 
now spea.v..ig, but its events have been mainly of a kind 
which will be best treated in a separate History of England. 
It has been a time of great advance at home in every way, 
both politically and socially, and it has also been a time 
of great inventions a.nd great progress of men's minds. 



362 REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY, [chap. 

England has also had something to do in some way or 
another with most of the affairs of the continent of Europe, 
but she has been engaged in only one great war, namely 
that with Russia^ from 1854 to 1856, nor has she gained 
or lost any European territory, unless we reckon it a loss 
that she has withdrawn from the protectorate of the 
loniaji Islands. But this time has been a time of . great 
changes and great advance in the British possessions in dis- 
tant countries. The trade in negro slaves was finally for- 
bidden in 1807, and slavery itself was abolished throughout 
the British dominions in 1833. The colonial dominions of 
England have vastly extended themselves, especially in 
Australia and Noi'th America. And most of them have 
received constitutions which have m.ade them altogether 
independent in their internal affairs. In Canada alone has 
there been any serious disturbance. There was a rebel- 
lion in 1837 among the French Canadians, but the colony 
has since been made almost independent, and it is now 
highly prosperous. In India there have bee;i waged several 
wars, and several provinces have been annexed. Here the 
British dominion was altogether shaken for a time by the 
Mutiny of the native soldiers in 1858. After its suppression^ 
the government of India was taken from the Company and 
given to the Crown, and the phantom of the Great Mogul 
came at last to an end, as the last nominal Emperor had 
been concerned in the mutiny. There have also been wars 
with China, Persia, and Abyssinia, and generally England has 
come more and more to the position of an insular power, 
withdrawing from any great interference with the affairs of 
the continent of Europe, but keeping up trade and coloniza- 
tion in all parts of the world, and being therefore ever 
and anon engaged in distant v/ars. The whole island of 
Great Britain has long been firmly joined together, not- 
withstanding the differences of race and speech in different 



XVII.] GREA T BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 363 

parts which have still not wholly died out. But the re- 
membrance of ancient misgovernment has constantly kept 
up the spirit of disaffection in h'eland^ which has broken 
out into more than one conspiracy and rising, though 
none on any great scale. Every care has been taken by 
a succession of measures to do justice to Ireland, by the 
admission of the Roman Catholics to equal rights with Pro- 
testants, by the disestablishment of the dominant Protestant 
Churchj and by laws for the benefit of the occupiers of 
land. But it would seem that the memory of old wrongs 
is even now stronger than the feeling of recent benefits. 

17. The Spanish Colonies in America. — If this period 
has been one of great change in the Old world, it has been 
one of equal change in the New. The example of the British 
colonies, which had given birth to the great commonwealth 
of the United States, has been followed by the Spanish 
Colonies also. But it must be remembered that there is 
this great difference between the Spanish and the Enghsh 
colonies, that, though in the United States the people are not 
of purely English blood, yet the mixture has been with other 
European nations or with slaves brought from Africa, and 
not at all with the natives of America. But in the 
Spanish settlements the Europeans and the natives have 
been largely mixed, and in truth the native blood prevails. 
When the national government in Spain was upset by 
Buonaparte, the Spanish colonies began to set up for them- 
selves in 1 8 10. Mexico was recovered, but it revolted again 
in 1820. A certain Iturbide called himself Emperor for a 
while, as people did in other places, but after a while a 
Federal Commonwealth was established. But the country 
has never been quiet for a long time, and it has lost the 
great province of Texas to the U^nited States. In 1862 a 
quarrel arose with England, France^ and Spain; from this 
England and Spain soon withdrew, but France went on 



364 REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY. [chap. 

and in 1863 the Austrian Archduke Maximilian was set up 
under French influence as yet another Emperor; but he 
was not acknowledged by the whole country, and in 1867 
he was overthrown and shot by the native President Juai'ez. 
Chili also separated from the Spanish dominion in 18 10, and 
Peru in 1820, and now Spain has no dominions on the con- 
tinent of America, and in the Spanish island of Cuba there 
have been endless disturbances. 

18, Brazil. — The great Portuguese settlement in South 
America has had a somewhat different history from either 
the English or the Spanish colonies. It separated from 
the mother-country, but it is the only state in the New 
World which, instead of becoming a republic, has remained 
under a prince of the old royal family. King Joint the 
Sixth, as we have seen, reigned in Brazil when he had to 
leave Portugal, and he called himself Ki7tg of Brazil as well 
as of Portugal. In 1822 Brazil was declared independent 
with a free constitution, under Don Pedro as Emperor. The 
crowns of Brazil and Portugal have since remained distinct, 
as on Pedro's abdication he was succeeded by his daughter 
Maria in Portugal, and by his son Pedro in Brazil. Brazil 
has had fewer disturbances, and has been more prosperous, 
than any other South American state. 

19. The United States. — But neither in the Old nor the 
New World has this period made more important changes 
than it has in the commonwealth of the Utiited States. 
Many new States have been founded towards the West, 
and the great dominion of Texas, which had been part of 
Mexico, first became a separate commonwealth, and was 
afterwards joined on to the Union. But the greatest 
event in the history of America has been the war which 
began in i86i between the Northern and Southern 
States. There were many causes of difference between 
them, the chief being the allowance of slavery in th© 



XVII.] NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA. 365 

South, which had long died out in the North. On the 
election of Abraliam Lincoln as President, in i860, South 
Carolina seceded from the Union, and the rest of the 
Southern States presently followed her. They called them- 
selves the Co7ifedei'ate States, and set up a Federal consti- 
tution, nearly the same as that of the United States, under 
Jefferson Davis as President. Then followed the war which 
lasted till 1865, when the Confederate States had to submit. 
Just about the same time President Lincoln, having just 
been chosen President a second time, was murdered. The 
result of the war has been the reconstitution of the Union, 
and the final getting rid of slavery throughout all parts of 
the North American continent. In Brazil and in the Spanish 
and Dutch colonies it still goes on, but in Brazil it will come 
to an end before many years. 

20. Summary. — Thus, in our own days, France has again, 

for the third time, tried to get the chief power in Europe, 

and a third time she has been beaten back, and has been 

driven to give up part of her former conquests. The rest of 

Europe has been completely changed by the union of Italy 

into one kingdom, and by the union, though less close, of 

nearly all GeT-matiy under the leadership of Prussia. Austria 

has withdrawn from both German and Itahan affairs, and 

has become a state joined with Hungary^ something in the 

same way as Sweden and Norway. The last traces oi Polish 

independence have been trampled out, and Deninark has been 

cut short by the complete loss of the Duchies. Two new 

kingdoms have arisen, namely Belgium and Greece^ of which 

the former has prospered much more than the latter. The 

whole East of Europe has during the whole time been more 

or less unsettled, as it doubtless always will be, as long as 

d Mahometan power rules over Christians. On the whole 

Europe has greatly gained in freedom and good government 

since the end of the wars of the French Revolution. But on 



366 REUNION OF GERMANY AND ITALY, [ch. xvii. 

the other hand, the keeping up of vast standing armies by 
nearly all the governments of the Continent makes peace at 
all times uncertain, and the tendency of later times has been 
to lessen the importance of the smaller states and to group 
Europe under a few great powers. Still, both in Great 
Britain and in most other parts of Europe, men may be 
very glad that they live in our own day and not in any of 
the times which have gone before us. 



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